Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism

This study imagines modernism as a series of conversations and locates Edith Wharton's voice in those debates. Important Wharton years: Recent studies of Wharton have examined her relationship to other literary movements, such as sentimentalism and realism, but not modernism, Wharton scholars are increasingly interested in her fiction of the 1920s, and most of this book is about this period in her work. Broad scope: The book covers a wide range of issues related to and influencing modernism, from the birth control movement to World War I to the nature of the artist. This study imagines modernism as a series of conversations and locates Edith Wharton's voice in those debates.