The Final Termination: A New Chronology of Edith Wharton’s Engagement to Harry Stevens
Ilene Kalish
Edith Wharton Review (2023) 39 (2): 99–127.
https://doi.org/10.5325/editwharrevi.39.2.0099
Abstract: This article offers a new chronology for Edith Wharton’s first engagement to Harry Stevens, showing that much of the accepted understanding of this episode—namely, that it was brief, from August to October 1882, and inconsequential—is incorrect and provides the first full account of the engagement. Through a close reading of Wharton’s life writing, a re-examination of the letters in Wharton’s archive, and a review of the newspapers of the early 1880s, this article shows the couple were linked from the ball season of 1879–80 and that the engagement lasted from August 1882 to June 1883. It also details Wharton’s treatment of her debutante debut in her life writing, focusing on her moments of misdirection and omission about this time period that helped to obscure this affair from her life’s history. For the first time, a location, date, and details about the abrupt demise of the engagement are given. Further, this article provides previously unknown details about the treatment of the couple’s on-again, off-again engagement status in the society pages of the major newspapers in New York and Newport in the late spring and early summer of 1883, making this Wharton’s first sustained treatment from the press.
The Edith Wharton Society 