Edith Wharton in the News

OK, we’ve now moved to 79th Street, between Fifth and Madison

In “House of Mirth,” Edith Wharton’s heroine turns a corner and sees grand new houses, “fantastically varied, in obedience to the American craving for novelty.” Americans at the turn of the century felt they had inherited the whole of Western civilization, that it was theirs to do with as they wished.

I asked Mr. David, a social critic of Hollywood mores who has been called “a savage Edith Wharton” by his friend Larry Charles, why all these celebrities seemed so devoid of self-awareness.

“I don’t know, that’s the $64,000 question,” he said. “I guess their instinct is to help, their motives are good, and they don’t consider how it might come off.” But, he added, “I think it’s a complete lack of judgment to talk about your lifestyle at this time, it’s crazy. Of course other people are going to react like that.”

 

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Eaton: We are beginning to generate ideas here — ideas that would work for Masterpiece. And then we talk to some of these independent companies and PBS Distribution about their interest in initiating our projects.

“The Buccaneers,” a 1995 miniseries adapted from Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel, followed the adventures of wealthy young Americans who marry into the British aristocracy. (Photo: Joss Barrett/Mobil)

This is the absolute reverse of how things used to work, though it did happen occasionally. We initiated Middlemarch, for instance, years ago. We had the idea, found a writer — Andrew Davies — and brought it to the BBC. And we did this with Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers, which is one of my favorite pieces of literature. But we weren’t the primary funder of those co-productions.

https://current.org/2020/04/how-rebecca-eatons-tailor-made-role-at-masterpiece-fits-with-a-new-strategy-for-original-dramas/

 

2020 EWS Prizes (Deadline: June 30, 2020)

The Edith Wharton Society is delighted to announce three prizes for 2020.  Below please find all calls for submissions.  All submission materials should be sent via email by June 30, 2020 to current EWS President, Melanie Dawson, College of William and Mary, at mvdaws@wm.edu.

The Elsa Nettels Prize for a Beginning Scholar

This award, formerly known as the “Edith Wharton Society Prize for a Beginning Scholar,” established in 2005, recognizes the best unpublished essay on Edith Wharton’s work by a beginning scholar, advanced graduate student, independent scholar, or faculty member who has held a full-time appointment for four or fewer years.  All entries will be considered for publication in The Edition Wharton Review, published by Penn State University Press.  The author of the prize-winning essay will receive an award of $250.

How to apply:

• Submissions should be 20-30 double-spaced pages long and follow the 8th edition MLA style, using endnotes rather than footnotes.
• Submissions should include two attached files: an anonymized MS Word version of your paper and a separate cover letter containing the applicant’s name, essay title, academic status, e-mail address, postal address, and the award name.
• Please use the subject line: “EWS Elsa Nettels Prize for a Beginning Scholar.”
• Submissions are due to mvdaws@wm.edu by June 30, 2020.

The Edith Wharton Society Award for Archival Research 

The archival award, in the amount of $500, enables a scholar to conduct research at one of the Edith Wharton archives at Wharton’s library at The Mount in Lenox, MA, the Wharton Collection at Yale University’s Beinecke Library, or the Wharton papers at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.

Funds must be used for transportation, lodging, and other expenses related to archival research.  Notification of the award will take place by July 30, 2020.  The award can be used between August 1, 2020 and July 30, 2021.  A brief report detailing some aspect(s) of the research (not intended to preempt publication in other scholarly venues) will be due to the EWS president by September 1, 2021 and will be published in the Edith Wharton Review.

How to apply:

• Submissions should include a proposal (of no more than two single-spaced pages) that describes the applicant’s overarching research project, its contribution to Wharton scholarship, the applicant’s scholarly preparation, and the relevance of the archive to the project’s completion.
• Also include two additional attachments: a CV and a separate cover letter containing your current affiliation, rank, and mailing address.
• Please use the subject line: “EWS Award for Archival Research.”
• Submissions are due to mvdaws@wm.edu by June 30, 2020.

The Edith Wharton Society Undergraduate Research Prize

First offered in 2014, the undergraduate research prize is open to students at all undergraduate levels.  Papers should be no more than fifteen pages long and can address Wharton’s works in any genre.  The winning essay will be published on the EWS website, and the author will receive an award of $100.

How to apply:

• Please send an anonymized electronic submission as an email attachment in Microsoft word, along with a separate attached cover letter containing your name, essay title, undergraduate institution, the name of your faculty mentor, e-mail address (and perhaps an alternate email, if your email address is about to change), postal address, and the name of the award.
• Please use the subject line: “EWS Undergraduate Research Prize.”
• Submissions are due to mvdaws@wm.edu by June 30, 2020.

…

The Edith Wharton Society sees its commitment to Wharton’s writing as including  financial support for Wharton scholarship, with two awards specifically for beginning scholars.  We thank all in the Wharton society who have donated to these prizes over the years, many of whom have been award recipients; your support of this endeavor enables our generosity.  If you are inclined to donate to support this year’s awards, a donation portal is linked here.

https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/donate/

 

 

EWS Archives: New Feature at the Site

There’s a new page at the site dedicated to the history of the Edith Wharton Society:  https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/membership/about/ews-archives/

Carole Shaffer-Koros is the Edith Wharton Society Archivist. Materials such as conference programs, etc., will be added.

This will supplement the basic history of the EWS here:

https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/membership/about/

EWS Board Meeting Minutes available

Minutes from the MLA 2020 EWS Board Meeting are available under Membership – EWS Business and here:

https://wordpress.com/page/edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/6590

Edith Wharton materials at Princeton digitized

From Mary Chinery via the wharton-l listserv:

Wharton scholars might be interested in newly available digitized archival materials in Princeton University’s Firestone Library. A significant trove of Wharton letters and other manuscripts and business papers have been posted online. Individual pages can be downloaded as .tiffs or the entire file as a .pdf (which requires less computer space). Happy Reading!

Here’s a link to the results from a general search in Finding Aids site for Edith Wharton. Click online materials on the left.

https://findingaids.princeton.edu/?v1=Edith+Wharton&f1=kw&b1=AND&v2=&f2=kw&b2=AND&v3=&f3=kw&year=before&ed=&ld=&rpp=10&start=0

See you in New York!

 

Mary Chinery, Georgian Court University

Happy Birthday, Edith Wharton! (1862-1937)

Happy 158th birthday to Edith Wharton!

Wharton in the News: EW’s copy of The Age of Innocence returns to The Mount

Edith Wharton kept restlessly editing her best sellers even through numerous print runs. In 1921, she finished fine tuning “The Age of Innocence” upon its sixth printing and tucked one edition onto the shelves at her chateau in Southeastern France.

That copy, with her signature and bookplate, has resurfaced in time for the centennial of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. It has been donated to the library at another of her palatial homes, the Mount, a museum in Lenox, Mass.

This is the only known English-language version of “The Age of Innocence” that belonged to Wharton, said Susan Wissler, executive director of the museum. (Examples of the writer’s copies of many of her works are already at the Mount; gaps include her collected teenage poems.) Ms. Wissler added that the museum’s book collection, as it grows, powerfully evokes Wharton’s interests and presence: “The library very much provides us with her soul.”