The New York Stories of Edith Wharton (New York Review Books Classics)
£6.22
America s First Lady - To me Edith Wharton will always be the first lady of American letters. Most people know she was an excellent writer of novellas e.g. Ethan Frome, and a brilliant writer of novels e.g. The Age of Innocence (the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize), but she was also a fantastic writer of short stories. It s no mean feat to excel in all three forms of story telling.This book contains 20 of her short stories ranging from artistic integrity to aging, and love to divorce. These stories range throughout Wharton s writing career, and Roxana Robinson s superb introduction gives an illuminating insight into the great lady herself. All her stories are written in her usual elegant, pure and simple prose style which we have come to love and admire. Also Wharton supplies her usual humour and satire in awkward situations.The shame is that if you are reading this you are already probably a fan of Edith Wharton, and so know you will be reading something of brilliance, and not someone who is coming to her writing for the first time. In this day and age where peope are always reading books off the bestseller lists which are quite often discarded after the first read it is so refreshing to read something from the time that authors wrote stories that were meant to be read again and again.