Edith Wharton:  Recommended Works

  • INDIVIDUAL WORKS: Bibliographies of Individual Works (compiled from the MLA Bibliography and other sources)
  • CURRENT BIBLIOGRAPHY: Current scholarship on Edith Wharton, 1999 to the present (includes dissertations, articles, and books)
  • COMPREHENSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY. This page contains works on Edith Wharton from 1953 to the present.  Warning: With 1,361 entries, it is a very long page.
  • FILMOGRAPHY. Filmography of Wharton's works made into movies
  • RECOMMENDED BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bibliography of Wharton criticism, fiction about Wharton, and bibliographies of individual novels composed of works recommended by Wharton Society members and WHARTON-L subscribers. If you have a work to recommend, please contact us.
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    Recommended Works by Wharton
    Recommended Secondary Sources on Wharton
    Recommended Fiction about Wharton
    Poll on Works by Wharton
    List of free online articles about Wharton (from findarticles.com)

    Annotations, where present, are the work of individual Wharton Society or Wharton-L members; recommendations have been compiled from responses to questions on Wharton-L.

    Biographies and Biographical Materials

  • Bell, Millicent.  Edith Wharton and Henry James: A Story of their Friendship . New York: Peter Olsen, 1965.
  • Benstock, Shari. No Gifts From Chance: A Biography of Edith Wharton . New York: Scribner's, 1994. Deserves very high praise, particularly for its work in documenting published and unpublished sources.
  • Dwight, Eleanor. Edith Wharton, An Extraordinary Life: An Illustrated Biography.   Informative, loving, and exuberantly written, especially about Wharton's extracurricular activities such as gardening, travel, and entertaining.
  • Lewis, R.W.B., and Nancy Lewis, eds. The Letters of Edith Wharton . New York: Scribners, 1989.
  • Lewis, R.W.B. Edith Wharton: A Biography . New York: Harper & Row, 1975.   Still the basically wonderfully researched  and elegantly written life.
  • Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton . New York: Addison-Wesley, 1977, 1995.
  • Wright, Sarah Bird. Edith Wharton A to Z: The Essential Guide to the Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 1998. An invaluable addition to the list.

    • For readers new to Wharton:

    Basic Wharton Fiction

  • The House of Mirth
  • The Age of Innocence
  • Ethan Frome
  • Summer (Note: Some members placed this book under this category ; others preferred to place it in "Next Level Fiction")
  • Discussion questions on Summer .
  • Collection of Ghost Tales
  • The Custom of the Country

    • Next Level Fiction

  • The Reef
  • Summer
  • The Mother's Recompense
  • Hudson River Bracketed
  • The Gods Arrive
  • Any collection of short stories and her autobiography, A Backward Glance

    • Secondary Sources

  • Ammons, Elizabeth. Edith Wharton's Argument with America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.Bauer, Dale M. Edith Wharton's Brave New Politics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
  • Bell, Millicent, ed.  The Cambridge Companion to Edith Wharton. New York: Cambridge UP, 1995. Ten original essays , some on individual novels, some on issues like race throughout Wharton's work . Most written by older and newer good scholars.
  • Bell, Millicent.  Edith Wharton and Henry James: A Story of their Friendship. New York: Peter Olsen, 1965.
  • Bendixen, Alfred and Annette Zilversmit, eds.Edith Wharton: New Critical Essays. New York: Garland, 1992. Eighteen essays, including some reprints, and  outstanding new essays, most original for the book;  each essay covers a different novel.
  • Benstock, Shari. Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth. Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical  Contexts, Critical History, and  Essays from Five Contemporary Critical. Perspectives. New York: St. Martin's, 1993. Extremely useful for undergraduates.  In addition to the text of the novel, this edition includes discussions of a variety of critical approaches and representative essays for each.
  • Benstock, Shari. No Gifts From Chance: A Biography of Edith Wharton. New York: Scribner's, 1994. Deserves very high praise, particularly for its work in documenting published and unpublished sources.
  • Bloom, Harold, ed. Edith Wharton: New Essays in Criticism. New York: Chelsea House, 1986.
  • Colquitt, Goodman, and Waid, eds.  A Forward Glance: New Essays on Edith Wharton.  Newark: U of Delaware Press, 1999.  New essay collection addresses several often overlooked elements of the Wharton canon, including fiction and nonfiction, paying special attention to issues of gender, class, and race.
  • Craig, Theresa.  Edith Wharton, A House Full of Rooms: Architecture, Interiors and Gardens.  New York: Monacelli P, 1996.
  • Dwight, Eleanor. Edith Wharton, An Extraordinary Life: An Illustrated Biography.  Informative, loving, and exuberantly written, especially about Wharton's extracurricular activities such as gardening, travel, and entertaining.
  • Goodwyn, Janet. Edith Wharton: Traveller in the Land of Letters. New York: St. Martins, 1990.
  • Howe, Irving ed.  Edith Wharton. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1962.
  • Lauer, Kristin, and Margaret Murray, eds. Edith Wharton: A Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1989.
  • Lauer, Kristin, and James Tuttleton, eds. Edith Wharton: The Contemporary Reviews. New York: Garland, 1992.
  • Lewis, R.W.B., and Nancy Lewis, eds. The Letters of Edith Wharton. New York: Scribners, 1989.
  • Lewis, R.W.B.Edith Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.   Still the basically wonderfully researched  and elegantly written life.
  • Marshall, Scott, et al.  The Mount: Home of Edith Wharton. Lenox, Mass.:  Edith Wharton Restoration, 1997
  • McDowell, Margaret. Edith Wharton. Boston: Twayne, 1972.  Also revised second edition, 1991.
  • Montgomery, Maureen E.  Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton's New York.  New York: Routledge, 1998.  More a treatment of  Wharton's cultural context than a close reading of her fiction, but a valuable resource for anyone interested in the New York of 1870 to 1920.
  • Price, Alan, and Katherine Joslin, eds. Wretched Exotic: Essays on Edith Wharton in Europe. New York: Peter Lang, 1993.
  • Price, Alan. The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War. New York: St. Martin's, 1996.
  • Singley, Carol J. Edith Wharton : Matters of Mind and Spirit. Cambridge studies in American literature and culture, 92. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. An indispensable source.  Available in paperback.
  • Tuttleton, James.  The Novel of Manners in America.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1972.
  • Vita-Finzi, Penelope. Edith Wharton and the Art of Fiction. London: Printer Publishers, 1990.
  • Waid, Candace.  Edith Wharton's Letters from the Underworld: Fictions of Women and Writing.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
  • Wegener, Frederick, ed. Edith Wharton: The Uncollected Critical Writings. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton UP, 1996.
  • White, Barbara A. Edith Wharton: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne, 1991.
  • Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1977, 1995.
  • Wright, Sarah Bird.Edith Wharton A to Z: The Essential Guide to the Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, 1998. An invaluable addition to the list.
  • Wright, Sarah Bird. The Making of a Connoisseur:  Edith Wharton's Travel Writing.  New York: St. Martin's, 1997

    • Fiction about Wharton

    Lynn C. Miller's The Fool's Journey. "A thoroughly rewarding novel about an American lit. professor engaged in writing a study of Wharton, with many well-researched Wharton flashbacks and insightful parallels between academe and Old New York.A must-read for friends and scholars of
    Wharton." --Emily Orlando, Tennessee State University

    Carol de Chellis Hill, Henry James's Midnight Journey. "The novel takes place in fin-de-siecle Vienne and stars James, Wharton, Freud, and virtually every other major art figure of the time.  It includes Wharton's affair and writing of 'pornography.'  It was named one of Publisher's Weekly's best books of 1993." --Mary E. Papke, University of Tennessee