A look at a bygone age, the first appealling thing about this book.
The whole lot of things Edith doesn't say about ther life, which made me extremely curious.
And how little she mentions women, until page 242 of course.

Not very juicy. Never takes the reader into her confidence. Mentions husband a few times, only once by name, and never even mentions they divorced! Fun to hear about Henry James. Rest of the name dropping unknown. Very dated.

Surprisingly, since I have always loved Edith Wharton's writing, I got about halfway through this book and just stopped. She never seemed to really write much about herself but more about how many important, educated and creative people she knew. I just got tired of her name-dropping and gave up.

What a mind! So intuitive and observant. Although I would've preferred less name dropping and more stories of her activities during the war, it was an interesting read from a historical perspective. And my list of "books to read" grew considerably from her references to influential writers.

Wharton's writing is every bit as clear and lucid as in her novels, and I really liked the look at her own life and background. I especially liked her understated wit and her early amazement at becoming a well-known writer, which makes her seem very human and approachable; here's a favorite passage: "I had written short stories that were thought worthy of preservation! Was it the same insignificant I that I had always known? Any one walking along the streets might go into any bookshop, and say: 'Please give me Edith Wharton's book'; and the clerk, without bursting into incredulous laughter, would produce it, and be paid for it, and the purchaser would walk home with it and read it, and talk of it, and pass it on to other people to read!"

Qué vida fantástica la de Edith! Es un recuento interesante, lleno de grandes autores que eran sus amigos más íntimos. No de detalle en detalle sino de impresiones, recuerdos y apreciaciones propias.

I was hoping to read an autobiography of Edith Wharton, but it turned out to be a memoire. Lots of name dropping both people and places with a lot of references to Henry James. In fact, it might be almost a Henry James biography. Learned very little about Edith's personal life and challenges but did get an appreciation for her war effort in WWI.

Another glimpse of the history of the autobiography, this one half a century before Eleanor Roosevelt. Wharton reveals very little about her inner self. The book is a combination travelogue and celebrity listing of all her many friends (most of whom I've never heard of). She writes in much more detail about her many arty friends than about herself. In particular, she writes nothing about her marriage, which is the subject I was most interested in. Her husband suffered from depression and bankrupted her finances so that she had to sell the home she dearly loved. That must have influenced her significantly, but his history is mentioned only in passing. Such a contrast to today's environment of everybody knows every little thing about everybody else -- instantly.

A fairly pleasant, if sometimes tedious (lots of name dropping), read in spite of the author's apparent high regard for herself. But then again, isn't that part of the appeal of Wharton?

Edith Wharton was a remarkable woman. In this book, she writes about the highlights of her life. The beginning focuses on her privileged childhood and how her love of books developed, leading to her becoming a successful writer. Throughout the book, she describes in depth, the people who were influential in her life. She captures the gilded era that ended with World War I which she experienced first hand, living in Europe and volunteering to help refugees in Paris. I highly recommend to those who enjoy her novels, as well as those who are interested in the lives of literary people and the upper class during the late 19th and early 20th century.

Autobiography of an early 20th century female author. All about who her friends were and how witty they all were !!

In many ways, this is a very frustrating memoir. I was lucky to pick up an edition with an introduction that warned me about this in advance, but anyone considering A Backward Glance should know that Edith Wharton is very selective about what she does and does not share with us.

She does not, for example, talk about her writing process, at all. In fact, if it weren't for the occasional mention of something like The House of Mirth getting published, you'd think you were reading the memoir of any random Gilded Age rich lady, instead of one of the most famous authors of her era. Edith Wharton's husband enters the narrative without introduction and then leaves it just as abruptly, and you need to consult outside sources to know that he and Edith got divorced - and also that she was having an affair, which of course she also doesn't talk about in this book.

So it's not a writing memoir, and it's not a fun gossipy inside look into upper-class society. If anything, this is a travelogue, and in that respect, it succeeds very well at what it means to do. If you want to know what it was like to grow up in one of the richest families in Gilded Age America (Wharton's ancestors are the source of the expression "keeping up with the Joneses"), this book will be illuminating for you. You definitely have to be in the right mindset to enjoy it - there's a lot of name-dropping and even more tone-deaf "wow, post-WWI Europe such a bummer, I guess we'll go back to New York and buy a mansion or whatever" entries, but those can be entertaining in their own way.

It definitely wasn't what I expected, but I think you can still enjoy this memoir if you go into it knowing what you're going to get - and what you're not.