R. W. B Lewis

Set among the elegant brownstones of New York City and opulent country houses like gracious Bellomont on the Hudson, the novel creates a satiric portrayal of what Wharton herself called "a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers" with a precision comparable to that of Proust. And her brilliant and complex characterization of the doomed Lily Bart, whose stunning beauty and dependence on marriage for economic survival reduce her to a decorative object,...

In The Selected Short Stories of Edith Wharton, R.W.B. Lewis, Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, has culled twenty-one of her best stories, here available in a single volume for the first time.