Category Archives: Queries

Queries and Replies: Definition of “toilets” in Custom of the Country

May I inquire about the meaning of ‘toilets’ used several times in the Custom of the Country? It seems to suggest as some sort of accessories ladies wore on their person that can be seen and admired.
Thank you. — Joy Cutler

Reply: The meaning in Custom of the Country and other older novels is often “to make one’s toilet or toilette,” meaning to prepare one’s hair to go out or be in company. The Oxford English Dictionary has this to say: “Frequently in form toilette. The action or process of washing, dressing, or arranging the hair. Frequently in to make one’s toilet.” Here’s the OED example from Washington Irving’s Bracebridge Hall: ” She actually spent an hour longer at her toilette, and made her appearance with her hair uncommonly frizzed and powdered.”

Another common reference is “toilet water  n.  [after French eau de toilette (see eau de toilette n. at eau n. f)] a dilute form of perfume, esp. one largely alcoholic in content used as a skin freshener; eau de toilette.” — Donna Campbell

For more queries, go to https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/category/queries/

Wharton Queries: Edith Wharton and the Minton Family

Hello,
I am researching the history of the Charles Armand Minton (1825-86) and Emily Grace Marriott Minton (1829-1911) family of New York for the period of 1854 – 1860 when it appears they were early expat American residents at Pau. Their son Maurice Meyers Minton was born there Jan. 31,1859. Any assistance describing their stay there would be much appreciated.

Kind Regards, Jeff

Name: Jeffrey Davis

Email:jbdavis@gmavt.net

Wharton Queries: Character crossover in Wharton’s works?

I am looking to research Edith Wharton and are wondering if you might be able to help me further establish if there is character crossover within Wharton’s works. Other than the character crossover in Old New York and The Age of Innocence, and the appearance of the same cast in Hudson River Bracketed and The Gods Arrive, are there characters that appear more than once in Wharton’s works? 

Thank you

Sincerely,

Caroline Platek

Queries Update: Reply to “Did Edith Wharton Read James Joyce?”

An unpublished Edith Wharton story, “The Children’s Hour,” recently appeared in The Times Literary Supplement (#6129:18 Sep 2020). The writing employs her humane and bitingly humorous skills equally, and it’s a triumph of a story. A sense of the story’s being incomplete struck me at first, but a rereading reveals it to be all there, and veering toward the postmodern. Another aspect is a vivid Joycean tone in dealing with the Catholic subject matter, and one could argue that the story is derivative of (or inspired by) The Dubliners. 

This led me to wonder about whether Wharton, who did read Joyce, had written any diary entries or essays about him, and indeed if she knew Joyce or ever corresponded with him. 

This entry was posted in Queries on October 21, 2020 by Donna Campbell. 

Wharton read James Joyce’s work and called Ulysses ‘schoolboy pornography’, famously comparing the prose to the raw ingredients of a pudding. In her 1923 letter to Berenson she wrote ‘I shall never believe that the raw material of sensation and thought can make a work of art without the cook’s intervening’. 

However RWB Lewis notes that she responded more positively towards his earlier work, and acknowledged that it had considerable merit (Lewis,1975: 520). 

The final section of ‘The Children’s Hour’* is quite arresting in its shift in style and subject matter,  and this type of poetic incongruity, which offers more questions than answers, is also present, I believe, in the endings of some of her other short stories, which have an almost modernist quality in their conclusions, or rather, lack of a single clear conclusion. I would recommend (re)reading Wharton’s ‘A Journey’(1899) and ‘After Holbein’ (1928) and looking at the final sentences. I certainly found their open-endedness intriguing, and their effect felt rather like the protomodernist ‘note of interrogation’ Adrian Hunter argues Woolf found in Chekov’s short stories. 

*Interestingly, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a popular poem entitled ‘The Children’s Hour’ which was first published in 1860. It refers to the time at the end of the day when children spent some time with their parents before going to bed. I wonder if Wharton had the work in mind when she wrote this story. 

Sarah Whitehead 

Queries: Did Edith Wharton Read James Joyce?

An unpublished Edith Wharton story, “The Children’s Hour,” recently appeared in The Times Literary Supplement (#6129:18 Sep 2020). The writing employs her humane and bitingly humorous skills equally, and it’s a triumph of a story. A sense of the story’s being incomplete struck me at first, but a rereading reveals it to be all there, and veering toward the postmodern. Another aspect is a vivid Joycean tone in dealing with the Catholic subject matter, and one could argue that the story is derivative of (or inspired by) The Dubliners.

This led me to wonder about whether Wharton, who did read Joyce, had written any diary entries or essays about him, and indeed if she knew Joyce or ever corresponded with him.

Queries: Did Undine Spragg know Shakespeare?

Hi, Wharton is wonderful! Having years ago read Ethan Frome, and more recently The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, I now find myself enthralled with The Custom of the Country, bringing me to my question. Undine’s early thoughts on Peter Van Degen lead to her conclusion that all the offerings of life “seem stale and unprofitable outside the magic ring of the Society Column.” Is it reasonable to assume Wharton knew her Shakespeare well enough to intentionally and selectively leave the other two adjectives, “weary” and “flat”, out of Hamlet’s soliloquy, or is her “stale and unprofitable” mere coincidence? (As there is no evidence that even The Hound of the Baskervilles was actually Undine’s, I have a hard time imagining The Bard on her reading list.) Many thanks in advance for any thoughts you might have.

Sincerely, Dr. Bruce Barlam

Queries: Wharton and the Van Rensselaer family

From the comments on https://edithwhartonsociety.wordpress.com/faq/

Can anyone tell me specifically how Edith Wharton was related to the Van Rensselaer Family? She is almost always referred to as a “cousin,” but was it through her paternal or maternal line?

Here (from the comments) is a reply from Marjorie Cox:

Hello, In reply to your inquiry regarding the family connection between Edith Wharton and Walter Berry – I have found a marriage between Eugene Van Rensselaer and Sarah Boyd Pendleton. Eugene Pendleton was born in Albany, NY on 12 Oct 1840. He was the youngest child of General Stephen Van Rensselaer (1789-1868) and Harriet Elizabeth Bayard (1799-1875). Walter Berry was the son of Nathaniel Berry(1811-1865) and Catherine Van Rensselaer (1827-1909). Catherine and Eugene were siblings. Eugene was Walter’s Uncle. On 26 Apr 1865 Eugene married Sarah Boyd Pendleton in Baltimore, Maryland. Sarah was born 11 Dec 1846 in Martinsburgh, West Virginia and was the daughter of Dr. Elias Pendleton (1820-1902) and Mariah Lucinda Tritt (1821-1887). The Pendleton line first connected with the Jones’ on 27 Jan 1825 when the marriage of Dr. James Muirson Pendleton to Margaret Jones took place in Manhattan, New York. James was the son of Nathaniel Pendleton (1756-1821) and Susanna Bard (1760 -1816). James was born in Manhattan in 1799. Margaret was the daughter of Joshua Jones (EW’s G Grandfather) (1757-1821) and Margaret Renshaw (1765-1848) and was born in Manhattan on 21 Jan 1808.
The common ancestor for James and Sarah is Henry Pendleton (1683-1721). He is the G Grandfather of James and the GGG Grandfather of Sarah. The relationship between these “cousins” if quite distant. Sarah is a 2C2R of James Muirson Pendleton.
In A Backward Glance Edith Wharton wrote, “My own ancestry, as far as I know, was purely middle-class; though my family belonged to the same group as any blood-relationship with it. The Schermerhorns, Jones, Pendletons, on my father’s side…”

Wharton Queries: The Old Maid as a film?

I’m sitting in quarantine as we all go through this global pandemic together, it is surreal tines, but has afforded me the time to read. I had the great pleasure of reading Edith Wharton’s novella “The Old Maid” from her ‘Old New York’. I was completely drawn into the dynamic between the cousins and the struggles of maternal sacrifice. I am interested in writing a film adaptation of the story, and since it entered the public domain this year, it looks like that is something I can proceed with, can you confirm this for me and/or point me in the right direction for further information?
Thank you,
Christen Carter

Email: christen_carter@yahoo.com

**

Although the novella is in the public domain as of this year, the 1939 Warner Brothers film adaptation starring Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins isn’t.  Even though you’d be writing your own film adaptation, I’m guessing that there are probably rights issues involving Warner Brothers that would need to be investigated first. The Watkins/Loomis Agency (see the FAQ page) might be able to help.

–Donna Campbell