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.”

“She was bad . . . always.” Old New York (1924) now Public Domain!

Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

“She was bad . . . always. They used to meet at the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”

–Edith Wharton, New Year’s Day, 1924

As of today, January 1, 2020, Wharton’s quartet of novellas Old New York is in the public domain. To celebrate this, here’s New Year’s Day (the Seventies), courtesy of Project Gutenberg Australia.

Here are PG Australia’s texts of the novellas:

The Spark, False Dawn, New Year’s Day, The Old Maid

Links to the other novels and novellas available online are being updated today and are available here: https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/works/novels-and-novellas/
NEW YEAR’S DAY
(The ‘Seventies)

I

“She was BAD…always. They used to meet at the Fifth Avenue
Hotel,” said my mother, as if the scene of the offence added to the
guilt of the couple whose past she was revealing. Her spectacles
slanted on her knitting, she dropped the words in a hiss that might
have singed the snowy baby-blanket which engaged her indefatigable
fingers. (It was typical of my mother to be always employed in
benevolent actions while she uttered uncharitable words.)

[read the rest at the link]

Wharton in the News: Edith Wharton Opera

Announcement of an Edith Wharton Opera

Composer Paul Scherer and librettist Germaine Shames have just completed studio recordings of IN VENICE: an Opera About the Pursuit of Love and Inspiration (not necessarily in that order), which is an adaptation of two of Wharton’s works, “The Muse’s Tragedy” and “The Touchstone.”  Together, these early works form a 90-minute two-act chamber opera.

The opera follows the experiences of a young biographer of a renowned poet, who chances upon the poet’s much talked-about Muse during a sojourn in Venice. They spend a week together—ostensibly, to collaborate on a volume of verse. Instead, romance blossoms. Ten years later, the biographer returns to Venice with his young socialite wife, having sold his Muse’s love letters to pay for the honeymoon. Can a Muse inspire the most sublime sonnets in the history of poetry and yet not be loved?

Interested scholars are invited to contact Paul Scherer (schereradvisors@gmail.com)  and/or Germaine Shames (germainewrites@gmail.com) for additional information.  You may also visit the following sites:

*Facebook page for In Venice  https://www.facebook.com/epicopera/.

*Website <http://germainewrites.com>*

*New Play Exchange <https://newplayexchange.org/users/2551/germaine-shames>*

*YouTube Channel <https://www.youtube.com/user/germainewrites>

EWS Scholarly Awards: Recipients Announced

The Edith Wharton Society is pleased to announce the recipients of this year’s scholarly awards.  We also wish to thank two evaluation teams, the first of which was composed of Jennifer Haytock (chair), Rita Bode, and Paul Ohler, who read the undergraduate essay submissions, which were assessed through a blind review process.  The submissions for the Archival Research Award and Elsa Nettels Award for a Beginning Scholar (also a blind review process) were read by a team that consisted of Myrto Drizou (chair), Katie Ahern, and Sheila Liming.  Many thanks to these thoughtful readers and to all who support the awards.  A hearty congratulations to all recipients!

Melanie Dawson

EWS President

 

 

The Archival Research Award

Rachel Walerstein, University of Iowa, for research relating to her dissertation,Masculine Gestures: Imitation and Initiation in American Modernism.

 

The Elsa Nettles Award for a Beginning Scholar

Hannah Champion, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, for “’Hold me, Gerty, hold me’: The ‘Lesbianism’ of Lily Bart.”

 

Undergraduate Essay Award  (co-winners)

Samuel McIntyre, William & Mary, for “Charity Case: The Gendered Economy of Gift-Giving in Summer.”

 

Katie Williams, William & Mary, for “Object or Owner: Navigating Identity through the Aesthetic in Wharton’s Fiction.”

 

 

CFP Edith Wharton’s New York: Deadline Extended to 9/15/19

Edith Wharton’s New York:
A Conference Sponsored by the Edith Wharton Society New Yorker Hotel
June 17th-20th 2020

EXTENDED DEADLINE: Please submit proposals no later than September 15th, 2019 to

whartonnewyork@gmail.com

Please join the Edith Wharton Society for its upcoming conference marking the centennial anniversary of the publication of Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence. We will celebrate this momentous year in New York, the setting not only of so many of Wharton’s works but also of much of her life.

While all topics are welcome, we are particularly interested in whole panels and individual papers that focus on New York as a geographical and thematic element in Wharton’s life and works. Papers could explore the role of New York City and/or the Hudson River Valley in Wharton’s works, Wharton’s own history with the region, or Wharton’s relationship to place and space more generally. Papers that offer new readings of The Age of Innocence—such as new historical approaches or legacies of The Age of Innocence, the novel’s relationship to other works by Wharton and/or her peers, and adaptations of the novel (for film, theater, etc.)—are also welcome.

Since 1920 marks the beginning of what many consider the “later years” of Wharton’s career, examinations of Edith Wharton’s works in the shifting literary and political foundations of post- WWI society are also of interest. The 20s mark the centennial of other significant Wharton texts, and essays that examine these later works are of particular interest.

We welcome submissions for full panels of 4-5 participants and roundtables of 6-7 participants as well as individual paper submissions.

For full panel and roundtable proposals, please submit 200-350-word summaries of each presentation included in the panel or roundtable as well as a brief 50-word bio and A/V requests for each presenter.

For individual paper proposals, please submit a 350-500-word abstract, a brief 50-word bio, and A/V requests as one Word document.

All conference participants must be members of the Edith Wharton Society at the time of registration.

For additional information, contact co-directors at email address above or individually: Margaret Toth (Meg), Manhattan College margaret.toth@manhattan.edu
Margaret Jay Jessee (Jay), University of Alabama at Birmingham mjjessee@uab.edu

New books: Selected Poems of Edith Wharton, edited by Irene Goldman-Price

Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her novel The Age of Innocence, was also a brilliant poet. This revealing collection of 134 poems brings together a fascinating array of her verse—including fifty poems that have never before been published.

The celebrated American novelist and short story writer Edith Wharton, author of The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Age of Innocence, was also a dedicated, passionate poet. A lover of words, she read, studied, and composed poetry all of her life, publishing her first collection of poems at the age of sixteen. In her memoir, A Backward Glance, Wharton declared herself dazzled by poetry; she called it her “chiefest passion and greatest joy.”

The 134 selected poems in this volume include fifty published for the first time. Wharton’s poetry is arranged thematically, offering context as the poems explore new facets of her literary ability and character.

Here is the link to the publisher’s page:  https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Selected-Poems-of-Edith-Wharton/Edith-Wharton/9781501182839

LitHub:  https://lithub.com/spurned-in-love-edith-wharton-turned-to-poetry/

Probably the most important thing to say is that the book has 134 of 200 known poems by Edith Wharton, 50 of them published for the first time.

CFP: EWS Prizes for 2019 (Deadline June 30, 2019)

The Edith Wharton Society is delighted to announce three prizes for 2019.  Below please find all calls for submissions.  All submission materials should be sent via email by June 30, 2019 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.  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, 2019.

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.  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.

Funds must be used for transportation, lodging, and other expenses related to archival research.  Notification of the award will take place by July 30, 2019.  The award can be used between August 1, 2019 and July 30, 2020.  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, 2020 and will be published in the Edith Wharton Review. Pleas use the subject line: “EWS Award for Archival Research.” Submissions are due to mvdaws@wm.edu by June 30, 2019.

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.  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, 2019.

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 in the top menu and here: https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/donate