a primeira novela é a mais fraca do livro, e todas as demais são simplesmente INCRÍVEIS.

As personagens desafiam a sociedade e as regras impostas pela alta sociedade nova iorquina que está em ascensão na américa. Discutindo prostituição, gravidez fora do casamento e classe no século XIX. Uma escrita bem tranquila e muito envolvente.

These four novellas, from 1924, are historical fiction, set in the 1840s, 50s, 60s and 70s. They are okay, interesting, but I didn't really find them gripping. It is also worth saying that if they had been set in the 20th century I would have a distinct knowledge of the difference between the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, but in the 1800s it is not so easy. Edith Wharton lived from 1862 to 1937.

I really couldn’t care less about rich people’s problems. Coming as I do from a long and illustrious line of poor people, I have that instinctive disdain that the poor harbor for the rich. But Edith Wharton always manages to overcome my working class superiority and, for a time, force me to care as much for the blue-blooded as the blue-collared. That’s how well she writes.

I must also confess that I enjoy her stories of “Old New York”—The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence, and now this collection of four novellas. But the “Old New York” of Edith Wharton is not the “Old New York” of my ancestors.

In The Old Maid, little Teena is cared for by a poor Irish woman and it is this woman who would bear the closest resemblance to one of my foremothers, not the high society ladies who are described in such brilliant prose. I almost feel like I should read How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis as a countermeasure, lest I feel sympathy for Charlotte Lovell or Delia Ralston. For, while Wharton was writing books like The Decoration of Houses (1897) and Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904), Riis was writing The Battle with the Slum (1901) and Children of the Tenements (1903). But Wharton writes so well that I can’t help but read her. She writes so authentically that I can’t help but believe her. And she writes with such heart that I can’t help but care about her characters.

Reading Wharton allows me to imagine myself as a member of the elite class, to picture myself dressing for dinner, attending balls, and touring Europe, but the mere mention of Bridget, the poor woman in charge of Charlotte Lovell’s destitute children, brings me back down to Earth, to the “Old New York” of my family’s history, to my own childhood neighborhood of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants, to mothers who worked in factories to supplement their husband’s meagre incomes, to the anxiety leading up to the landlord’s monthly visit to collect the rent, and to dull summer evenings when hard-working people sat on their stoops with their little pails of beer while the children played in the street.

“In a shabby white-washed room a dozen children, gathered about a stove, were playing with broken toys. The Irishwoman who had charge of them was cutting out small garments on a broken-legged deal table” (106).

Wharton wasn’t oblivious to the poor. She writes about poverty in Ethan Frome. She is able to depict the stable where the destitute children receive charity from their betters, their crumbs from the upper crust. But Wharton writes what she knows and what she knows is wealth and luxury and privilege and all the apparently stifling traditions that go along with being a member of the American aristocracy. She portrays a world that few had the good fortune to experience and she does so with a genius that is uniquely hers. So I must put aside my contempt for the one percent from time to time and read her.

A really nice group of novellas linking generations New Yorkers and showing the evolution of high society in Manhattan. As usual Edith Whatron does this with great insight and beautiful writing.

False Dawn- 4 stars

The Old Maid- 4 stars My favorite out of the entire collection.

The Spark- 2 stars This was my least favorite of the entire collection. This is more of a character driven story. But I really didn't understand why the narrator was fascinated with Hayley Delane.

New Year's Day- 4 stars

Edith Wharton was born into the world of wealthy "Old New York" society and her key to success as an author may have been writing about what she knew. Not having read any of the biographical works about her, I assume that she participated in Society to the extent that was necessary for acceptance and survival as a woman of that era. Yet she possessed, and used in her writing, the ability to step back and view the expectations of that Society with "double-vision" -- both as the "insider" who understood it and as an "outsider" who could evaluate it objectively.

I admire Wharton for her ability to see both the fine details and the Big Picture. Her gift for details gives us the believable and lovable one-of-a-kind characters which populate all of her works -- people whose lives, perhaps unbeknownst to themselves, are out of step with the accepted norms of "Society". Whereas their peers treat these characters with disdain, "cutting" them for their deviance from socially acceptable behaviour, Wharton treats them with gentleness, understanding, and compassion. These four stories, representing New York Society during four different decades of the 19th century, each feature a character of this type.

The first story, False Dawn (The Forties), presents a young man who, during his pre-marital "Grand Tour" of Europe and the Near East, is tasked by his father with purchasing a private collection of Old Masters. Instead, he proudly brings home pieces of art which he personally prefers and is disinherited by the old gentleman for bringing home such rubbish.

The Old Maid (The Fifties) is a heart-wrenching story about two cousins who were inseparable as children. They make very different life-choices and, when their paths cross later in life, live together but grow apart. Wharton very boldly addresses (among other issues) the nature of motherhood and of women's relationships with each other. This is a story with a message which still reverberates in the 21st century.

The Spark (The Sixties) is a fascinating story of a veteran of the Civil War who is misunderstood by his Society friends. He is a mysterious character who makes a compassionate decision which causes his isolation from his wife and child as well as from Society. Although he was influenced by war-time experiences of another era (when PTSD was called by another name), this man's story speaks across the ages to modern readers.

New Year's Day (The Seventies) is (in my opinion) the crowning glory of the collection -- one of only a handful of stories which has ever (in my memory) left me in tears! It is the story of an "outsider" who is reluctantly accepted by Society by virtue of her husband's status; of the decisions which she makes in order to provide financially during his illness; and of her ability to rise above the judgments of Society and, as a widow, open her heart and home with grace and hospitality.

An absolutely spectacular collection of novellas! Highly recommended, especially to lovers of the work of Edith Wharton.

It's been so long since I've read any Wharton. What a delightful break. Four families, no connections among them, each a decade apart beginning in the 1840s. Wharton is so sly, so clever in turning the seams inside out--to see women as prisoners within their own families, even privileged. Son's disowned for having their own taste. But the most delightful was the story of Hayley Delane. Run by a younger wife who pursues her flirtations quite publicly, then comes bouncing back. He, needing her energy and annoyances, desolate without her. Then the secret. He fought at the battle of Bull Run. Was wounded. Talks about it, twice. Remembering with deep admiration the man who tended him, who's voice still abides in his head giving him counsel. Unable to remember his name until it is accidentally revealed. Great beard. Walt.

Négy kisregény, amik elvileg egy-egy évtizedre jellemzőek New Yorkot nézve 1840-1870-es évekig. Eredetileg is egyben jelentek meg, nem utólag lettek összeboronálva. Kicsit meseszerűek, néha hihetetlenek tűnő irányt vesznek az események. De csak annyira éreztem megkomponáltnak, amennyire még jól esett.

A False Dawn a begyepesedettség és kontrollmánia története szemben a változni képességgel és a nem meghajlással. A konzervatív apa – felvilágosult fiú története nagyon belopta magát a szívembe a maga édes-bússágával. Kicsit sajnáltam, hogy már a fiú karaktere sem igazán kidolgozott, nem beszélve a későbbi feleségéről. Bár jobban belegondolva az apa is két bites. Na, hát tanító jellegű mesék, mondtam.

Az Old Maid állítólag a leghíresebb kisregény a kötetből, és meg is értem, hogy miért. Az a lelki vonulat, ami végigvisz a barátnők és a törtvénytelen gyermek között, szívszaggató, mélyen emberi, és azon a vonalon hihetetlen, amit az élet még simán produkál magától is. Terjedelemben is ez a leghosszabb egyébként, bár ez önmagában még nem ok arra, hogy a legteljesebbnek érződő is legyen.

A The Sparknál az első problémám az volt, hogy nehezen értettem meg, ki a narrátor, kiről beszél, és mi is a lényeg. Olyannyira, hogy kénytelen voltam Google-segítséget kérni. És innentől kezdve nem tudott berántani.

A New Year’s Day esetén is kicsit kavarogtam, hogy mikor-hol vagyunk éppen, de azt magamtól is sikerült rendbe tennem. A csavart nem vártam. Kicsit művi volt ez is, de alapvetően szórakoztató azért.

Összességében érdekes kis csokor volt ez. Nem ártana egyszer fizikai példányban is elolvasnom, hogy esélyem se legyen közben elkalandozni, mint ahogy hangoskönyvnél néha azért megesik.

Fiction. Made me want to read all of Wharton. Classics.

I've been reading through Edith Wharton's body of work chronologically. This set of novellas is astonishingly marvelous. Just seriously tight mother fucking writing on every conceivable level. That's it. That's the review.

Four very good short novels which give an insight into the life of the wealthy families of New York in the late 1800s, most especially the condition of women in that society.

Forgotten how much I'd enjoyed Edith Wharton. Her writing is often slyly amusing, humorous in unexpected places (sometimes easy to miss), and these novellas all contain O. Henry-esque twists.

In "False Dawn", a domineering father dispatches his disappointing son to Europe on a two-year tour with one directive: to assemble a respectable art collection, which must naturally include an old master or two, as budget allows. Once abroad, the son develops an appreciation for art that is not (yet, he is sure) appreciated by others and builds his collection of these unknown works instead--so much to his father's dismay that he is written entirely out of the old man's will. Only time, more than any of them have, will tell whether the paintings are worth anything.

"The Old Maid" is a complicated story of the friendship--or appearance of it--between two cousins, one of them a married woman who seems to have everything and one of them seemingly destined for a lonely life. When the latter reveals that her chance at a married life means she might lose her beloved secret child, her cousin enacts what she considers justice, adopting the child as her own while avoiding scandal, ending her cousin's marriage prospects as punishment for her loose ways, but allowing the woman to live with her family on the condition that she will never admit that she is the child's mother. The tension between the two women--one a mother by birth, the other a mother by adoption, both under one roof--is a constant source of inner turmoil, especially as the girl's parentless state threatens to limit her own prospects of marital happiness. Both women must decide what it means to be a mother, and how much of a mother they are willing to let the other be.

"The Spark" is the least linear of the four novellas, with our narrator describing his admiration for an older acquaintance of his who does not boast about his admirable actions in the Civil War; suffers the indignities of his wife's serial affairs with only one--and, thus, all the more impressive, in our narrator's mind--outburst of anger; and offers true Christian charity to his wife's scandalous, ne'er-do-well husband despite its impact on his own social reputation. The twist in this story is almost an afterthought: the older gentleman remembers fondly a man who lifted his spirits in a Civil War hospital but can't remember a thing about him...until chance reveals that the humble aide is now a famous person. This one wasn't my favorite: though an excellent character study, the mystery felt tacked on, like Wharton felt a last-minute need for the story to exist, though her narrator does caution the reader at the beginning that this will be the case.

Finally there is "New Year's Day". A married woman's affair is exposed when a hotel fire forces her and her lover to evacuate...right across the street from a house where the cream of high society New York are enjoying the spectacle during a New Year's party. But, of course, the reality is more complicated than the appearance. Upon her long-suffering husband's death, when her lover comes for her hand in marriage, she confesses that the affair had been purely mercenary. In fact, she had loved her husband dearly. As his illness cost him his livelihood, his distress over his inability to financially her only made him sicker--and she, terrified of losing any more time with him, embarked on an affair so she could have enough gifts and trifles to maintain appearances and calm her husband's fears. After her husband's death, instead of salvaging her lifestyle by marrying her supposed lover, she chooses to remain single, devoted to her husband in his death as she was not, for his sake, at the end of his life. Our narrator, who witnessed the fire as a child and grew up knowing only the public side of the scandal, tells us how she lives out her later years in a buzzy social side-circle in order to distract herself until she can--she hopes, despite her sin--join her husband after death.

It probably won't surprise anyone that I enjoyed "The Old Maid" and "New Year's Day" best. They had such depth of emotion, such complicated motives and feelings, which Wharton conveys with lovely language. Maybe I did also care about the characters more because, as women, the stakes felt so much higher. In "False Dawn", society's caprice in siding with the angry father rather than the wronged son is clearly at fault, as it is in "The Spark" when society turns is back (and then turns back to again) the object of the story. In both stories, it is possible to imagine an alternative in which things work out better than they would have otherwise. In the two women-centered stories, however, there is much less of a feeling that there was a better outcome for any of them, only worse outcomes.

All in all, these novellas were an excellent reminder of why I loved reading Edith Wharton in school and why I hoped to read more of her work. I'll keep on hoping...but there are so many other books on my shelves, at work, and at the library!