Edith Wharton: a Pathfinder
Edith Wharton in 1880 at age 18
Image reproduced from Lewis, R. W. B. Edith
Wharton: A Biography.
New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1975.
Introduction
Edith Wharton is regarded as one
of the major American writers of the twentieth century. Her lifetime
spanned a period of great turmoil in American history; she was born
during the Civil War (on January 24, 1862), experienced firsthand the
devastation of World War I from her vantage point in France, felt the
effects of the Great Depression, and died (on August 11, 1937) just
before the outbreak of World War II. Edith Wharton was profoundly
affected by the societal changes that accompanied the political and
economic upheaval of her lifetime, and it is her depiction of the
effects of society upon the individual for which she perhaps is best
remembered. Wharton's works have been praised not only for their
accurate portrayal of society but also for their shrewd, often satiric,
commentary on the social order. Other themes common to Wharton's works
include the relationships between dependency and passion and between
affiliation and independence, and the timelessness of these themes have
led to Wharton's continued popularity as both an author and as a
subject for research.
Edith Wharton was a remarkably
prolific writer, producing on average one volume a year between the
publication of her first book in 1897 (The Decoration of Houses,
written with Ogden Codman Jr.) and her death in 1937. Additionally, she
was a very versatile writer. Her works include novels, novellas, short
stories, ghost stories, an autobiography, literary criticism, poetry,
plays, and translations, and they cover such diverse topics as war,
travel, landscape gardening, Italian architectural history, and
interior decorating. Even her fiction, for which she is best known,
covers a variety of subject areas; characters in her novels range from
members of New York's highly pedigreed leisure class to the nouveaux
riches who appeared during the turn of the century to the impoverished
denizens of New England's hill country.
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Scope
This pathfinder is intended for
undergraduate students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill who wish to learn about Edith Wharton. This pathfinder is intended
to serve as an introductory guide rather than an exhaustive
bibliography; as such, the focus of this pathfinder is more on Edith
Wharton's life than on critical reviews of her writing.
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Key Library of Congress subject headings
There are more than 50 Library of
Congress subject headings that specifically mention Edith Wharton, in
addition to numerous other subject headings that apply to her in a more
general way. Following is a selection of the subject headings that will
be most useful for someone searching an online catalog since these
terms should lead to the greatest amount of information about Edith
Wharton.
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 -- Bibliography
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 -- Correspondence
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 -- Criticism and
Interpretation
- Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937 -- Political and
Social Views
- American Literature -- 20th Century
- American Fiction -- Women Authors
- Women Novelists, American -- 20th Century
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Location of works cited in
pathfinder
The following is a key to the
locations of the various reference sources mentioned in this
pathfinder. All listed locations can be found on the campus of the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Davis: stacks at Davis Library
- Davis Ref: reference collection area of
Davis Library
- UL: stacks at House Undergraduate Library
- UL Ref: reference collection area of House
Undergraduate Library
A complete citation is given for
all works cited in this pathfinder. On the line following the citation
is the specific information (the library and the Library of Congress
call number) that can be used to find items mentioned in this
pathfinder.
For items that can be found in
the Reference area of Davis Library, specific location information (row
or bay number) is also given. For items that can be found in the stacks
of Davis Library, the floor number on which the item can be found is
given.
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Browsing areas
The following Library of Congress
call numbers are associated with Edith Wharton's works, literary
criticism of her works, information about her life, and bibliographies
of her works. These call numbers can all be found on the 8th floor of
the Davis Library stacks.
- PS3545 .H16 -- works written by Edith
Wharton
- PS3545 .H16 Z -- literary criticism of
Edith Wharton's works; autobiography and biographies of Edith Wharton
- Z8969 .2 -- bibliographies of Edith
Wharton's works
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Frequently mentioned works
The following works are often
mentioned as being sources from which one could learn about the life
and works of Edith Wharton. Both R. W. B. Lewis and Cynthia Griffin
Wolff are frequently cited in other reference sources about Edith
Wharton, and their works are generally considered to be the definitive
sources of information about Wharton. Additionally, Wharton's own
autobiography serves the very useful purpose of giving the reader a
chance to learn about the author in her own words.
Lewis, R. W. B. Edith
Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc., 1975.
Davis, 8th floor & UL -- PS3545 .H16 Z696
Lewis's work was, for all
intents and purposes, the first major biography of Edith Wharton. It is
quite substantial, running to 592 pages in length, and includes many
photographs of Edith Wharton and her friends, family, and residences.
The biography is the product of a great deal of research personally
conducted by Lewis, who traveled to all of the major repositories of
Wharton's papers and spoke with many people who had first- or
secondhand knowledge of Wharton, her relatives, and her friends. It
should also be noted that it was Lewis's assistant, Marion Mainwaring,
who first discovered "the Fullerton papers" that gave conclusive
evidence of Wharton's affair with fellow writer Morton Fullerton.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. A
Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton. 2nd ed. New York:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.
Davis, 8th floor -- PS3545 .H16 Z94 1995
While Lewis's work focuses on
the day-to-day details of Edith Wharton's life, Wolff's work is more
psychological in nature, analyzing the relationship between Wharton's
life and her writing. Lewis himself commented that Wolff "brought into
view whole dimensions of Edith Wharton -- as a person, as a woman, as a
writer -- that I was most imperfectly aware of, if aware at all.... Her
book is a model of the sophisticated combination of psychological
insight and literary sensibility." Wolff's work was originally
published in 1977; the 1995 2nd edition includes a new introduction and
two new chapters (one about the stereotypes of women on the 19th
century stage and one about the way in which Edith Wharton's evolving
sensuality is reflected by the "frozen austerity" of Ethan Frome
followed by the "lyricism and tempered happiness" of Summer).
Wharton, Edith. A
Backward Glance. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company,
Incorporated, 1934.
Davis, 8th floor & UL -- PS3545 .H16 Z5 1934
When Edith Wharton completed
her autobiography in 1934, three years before her death, she commented
to a friend that she had had second thoughts about writing her memoirs
but that "one sees nowadays so many post-mortems attempted by
biographers on a basis of guesswork and gossip, that I thought I would
rather tell my uneventful story myself!" (Lewis xi). Wharton's
statement notwithstanding, however, her autobiography is as interesting
for what it includes as for what it omits. No mention at all is made of
Morton Fullerton, with whom Wharton was romantically entangled for
years, and very little is said about her husband Teddy, from whom she
was divorced in 1913. Nonetheless, Wharton's autobiography gives the
reader a fascinating glimpse into Wharton's life and her thought
processes in creating her works.
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Dictionaries,
encyclopedias, and guides
The following sources will give
researchers a brief overview of Edith Wharton's life and major works.
Entries in each type of work are arranged alphabetically within each
volume and often include cross-references, indexes, or bibliographies
that can point researchers to other sources where they perhaps could
find more in-depth information about topics covered in the dictionary,
encyclopedia, or guide.
"Edith Wharton." Contemporary
Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction,
General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures,
Television, and Other Fields. Ed. Susan M. Trosky. Vol. 132.
Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1991.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- Z1010 .C655
This work is an excellent
source of easy-to-read, well arranged background information about
Edith Wharton. The 6-page entry (pages 447-452) is broken down into
several sections, including such titles as "Personal," "Career,"
"Member," "Awards and Honors," "Writings" (a section that is further
subdivided into sections entitled "Novels," "Short Stories," and
"Other"), "Sidelights," "Media Adaptations," and "Biographical /
Critical Sources." Interestingly, this work stated that it is uncertain
whether Edith Wharton's birthday was January 23 or 24 and whether the
year of her birth was 1861 or 1862, although no other source consulted
for this pathfinder mentioned Edith Wharton's date of birth as being
anything other than January 24, 1862.
Edel, Leon. "Wharton,
Edith Newbold Jones." Dictionary of American Biography. Ed.
Robert Livingston Schuyler. Vol. XI, Supplement Two. New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1958.
Davis Ref, row 21 & UL Ref -- E176 .D56
Edel's entry about Edith
Wharton, although rather brief, is notable because, as stated in the
entry, he "has drawn... upon personal recollections of Mrs. Wharton and
the reading of unpub. [original wording] Henry James letters, including
correspondence with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Cadwalader Jones. He has
also had access to some of her correspondence with her publishers"
(706). This article was written before the discovery of the Fullerton
papers, so it does not completely cover Wharton's life. Edel's entry,
however, is the source of the Edith Wharton information found on biography.com.
Funston, Judith E. "Edith
Wharton." American National Biography. Ed. John A. Garraty
and Mark C. Carnes. Vol. 23. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Davis Ref, bay 3 & UL Ref -- CT213 .A68
Although not even three pages
long, this article is a very useful source of information for
researchers who wish to find firsthand information about Edith Wharton.
It discusses the location of all of the major collections of Edith
Wharton's documents, including the Beinecke Rare Book Room and
Manuscript Library at Yale University, the William Royall Tyler
Collection in Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Harry Ransom
Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the
Houghton Library at Harvard University, the Robert Frost Library at
Amherst College, the Lilly Library at the University of Indiana at
Bloomington, the Scribner archives at the Firestone Library at
Princeton University, and the Harvard Center for the Study of
Renaissance Art at Villa I Tatti in Settignano, Italy.
Lawson, Richard H. "Edith
Wharton." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Bobby Ellen
Kimbel. Vol. 78. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc., 1989.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- PS21 .D5185
McDowell, Margaret.
"Edith Wharton." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Karen
Lane Rood. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1980.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- PS21 .D5185
Tuttleton, James W.
"Edith Wharton." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Donald
Pizer and Earl N. Harbert. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Research Company,
1982.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- PS21 .D5185
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin.
"Edith Wharton." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. James
J. Martine. Vol. 9, Part 3. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1981.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- PS21 .D5185
Wright, Sarah Bird.
"Edith Wharton." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Ed. Donald
Ross and James J. Schramer. Vol. 189. Detroit: Gale Research, Inc.,
1998.
Davis Ref, row 3 & UL Ref -- PS21 .D5185
The five aforementioned volumes
of the Dictionary of Literary Biography provide detailed, yet
largely introductory, information about Edith Wharton and her life and
works. Each of the volumes focuses on a different aspect of literary
biography; the breakdown of the volumes' contents is as follows:
- Volume 4: "American Writers in Paris,
1920-1939"
- Volume 9: "American Novelists,
1910-1945"
- Volume 12: "American Realists and
Naturalists"
- Volume 78: "American Short-Story
Writers, 1880-1910"
- Volume 189: "American Travel Writers,
1850-1915"
The entries about Edith Wharton
contained in Volumes 4 and 9 have sections entitled "Birth,"
"Marriage," "Awards," "Death," "Selected Books," and "Biography"; for
Volumes 12, 78, and 189, the first section of each entry is "Selected
Books." The articles then discuss in some length Wharton's life and
works within the framework of the title of the particular volume. Each
volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography contains a
cumulative index, which means that it will be easy to find any future
entries that are made about Wharton. All of the articles in the Dictionary
of Literary Biography were written by noted Edith Wharton
scholars, making the Dictionary of Literary Biography a very
good source for authoritative information about Edith Wharton and her
literary endeavors.
Waid, Candace. "Wharton,
Edith." The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United
States. Ed. Cathy N. Davidson and Linda Wagner-Martin. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995.
Davis, 8th floor & Davis Ref, row 29
& UL & UL Ref -- PS147 .O94 1995
This source was designed to be
used by both scholars and the general public and brings a feminist
interpretation to works created by American female authors. Although
relatively new to the field of Edith Wharton scholarship, Candace Waid
has published two books about Edith Wharton and is currently editing
the forthcoming Norton Critical Edition of Wharton's The Age of
Innocence, so her entry does have the ring of authority. The index
at the end of the book indicates that Wharton is referenced in many
other entries as well, including ones dealing with adolescence, the
bildungsroman, expatriation, fashion, historical fiction, and "the
Other Woman."
Zilversmit, Annette.
"Wharton, Edith." Encyclopedia of American Literature. Ed.
Steven R. Serafin. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1999.
Davis Ref, row 29 & UL Ref -- PS21
.E53 1999
This source contains a fairly
lengthy and in-depth discussion of the plots of some of Edith Wharton's
best known novels and short stories, in addition to a discussion of how
some of the significant events of Wharton's life affected both the
subjects about which she chose to write and the way in which she
treated those subjects. In this sense, Zilversmit's contribution can be
thought of as a condensed version of Cynthia Griffin Wolff's noted
biography of Edith Wharton. Zilversmit has served as president of the
Edith Wharton Society, a fact that lends authority to her entry.
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Autobiography and biographies
Note: The following three
autobiographical or biographical sources were previously discussed in
the "Frequently mentioned works" section of this pathfinder:
Lewis, R. W. B. Edith
Wharton: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers,
Inc., 1975.
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin.
A Feast of Words: The Triumph of Edith Wharton. 2nd ed. New
York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995.
Wharton, Edith. A
Backward Glance. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company,
Incorporated, 1934.
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to frequently mentioned works
The following sources are
intended to provide an overview of Edith Wharton's life and her works.
Auchincloss, Louis. Edith
Wharton: A Woman in Her Time. New York: The Viking Press, 1971.
Davis, 8th floor -- PS3545 .H16 Z56
Auchincloss's text was
influenced by his conversations with Leon Edel and R. W. B. Lewis, both
of whom also wrote biographies of Edith Wharton, and also by various
people who knew Edith Wharton themselves or were related to people who
had known her. Auchincloss's work is notable for the extensive use of
black and white photos throughout the text that depict Edith Wharton,
her friends and family, her various residences, the title pages and
illustrations from some of her works, etc. Auchincloss makes his
presence known throughout the biography, so it seems to be very
subjective in its treatment of Edith Wharton. (For example, in reaction
to an excerpt from Edith Wharton's autobiography, in which Wharton
claimed that her family valued speaking "proper" English, Auchincloss
stated, "I cannot help but be of two opinions about this" (29)).
Bell, Millicent. Edith
Wharton and Henry James: The Story of Their Friendship. New York:
George Braziller, Inc., 1965.
Davis, 8th floor & UL -- PS3545 .H16
Z59
According to Bell, her work "is
a biography neither of Henry James nor of Edith Wharton but rather of a
friendship that flourished between them for only a portion of each of
their long lives" (7). Bell further claims that "[n]o one has till now
described the drama of their mutual discovery of one another and of
their developing intimacy, the history of their reciprocal affection
and criticism, the occasions and circumstances that brought them
together from year to year, and the private events and concerns of each
in which the other found himself involved as close friendship can
involve one" (8). For this reason, Bell's text is certainly worthy of
perusal by an aspiring Wharton scholar.
Lubbock, Percy. Portrait
of Edith Wharton. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc.,
1947.
Davis, 8th floor -- PS3545 .H16 Z73
Published only 10 years after
Edith Wharton's death, Lubbock's biography was the first to appear and,
as such, had a great influence on future biographies. Although Lubbock
was at one time a very close friend of Edith Wharton, the two of them
had had a falling out over Lubbock's choice of bride, and it has been
suggested by some of Wharton's other biographers that Lubbock allowed
his resentment of Wharton to come through in his biography of her. R.
W. B. Lewis, for example, claimed that "the book's most striking
characteristic to the thoughtful reader is the subtly distributed
malice toward its subject, a careful, muted downgrading of Edith
Wharton as a human being and a writer. The picture that emerges is
surreptitiously false in many places" (516).
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Reviews and literary criticism
The following sources can be used by
researchers wishing to find in-depth discussions of major themes,
character analyses, and interpretations of some of Edith Wharton's
major literary works.
Nevius, Blake. Edith Wharton: A
Study of Her Fiction. Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1961.
Davis, 8th floor -- PS3545 .H16 Z75
Nevius's examination of some of
Edith Wharton's major writings has been cited often by other Wharton
scholars. His work touches on many of the key themes in Wharton's
literature and, like Irving Howe's collection of critical essays about
Edith Wharton (discussed below), was intended to rejuvenate interest in
Edith Wharton as a writer and as a person by showing the universality
of these themes as well as the deftness with which Wharton presented
them.
Edith Wharton: A
Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Irving Howe. Englewood Cliffs,
N. J.: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1962.
Davis, 8th floor & UL -- PS3545 .H16
Z68
In the early 1960s, when Howe's
collection of critical essays about Edith Wharton's works was
published, literary scholars were just beginning to realize that
Wharton was worthy of being studied in her own right and not simply
because she was a contemporary of Henry James and had echoed some of
his themes in her works. For that reason, some of the essays that are
included in Howe's collection are rather harsh in their treatment of
Wharton. But as Howe stated in the introduction to his work, his
greatest concern in publishing the compilation was that "the critical
issues posed by her work should again be raised, so that she may take
her rightful place as a living figure in the literary world" (1).
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Journals
The publications listed in this
section have all relatively recently published articles that deal with
the life and/or works of Edith Wharton. Those publications for which
electronic access is available can be accessed easily from the UNC-CH
campus. Off-campus access to e-journals requires either faculty, staff,
or student status (in which case a 9-digit PID number is used to gain
access to the system) or AHEC affiliate status (in which case an AHEC
digital library account number is used to gain access to the system).
American Literary
Scholarship. Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1963 - (annual).
Davis, 7th floor & Davis Ref, row
29-- PS3 .A47
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_literary_scholarship/
(link accessed and verified on December 2, 2002)
According to its web site, American
Literary Scholarship "covers current critical analysis of American
literature. Bibliographic essays are arranged by writers and time
periods, from pre-1800 to the present." The journal is divided into two
parts. Essays in part I treat scholarship done about major authors.
Essays in part II are arranged by time period. Author and subject
indexes are provided, and the key to abbreviations identifies the
sources that have been reviewed in each issue. The table of contents
varies only slightly from year to year; the foreword to each volume
should be consulted regarding any changes to the table of contents for
that particular volume.
Edith Wharton Review. Brooklyn, NY: Edith Wharton Society, 1990 -
(semiannual).
Davis, 8th floor folios -- PS3545 .H16
Z647
http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/wharton/ewr.htm
This journal is the official
publication of the Edith Wharton Society and is produced by the
Department of English at Long Island University in Brooklyn, NY. It is
an extremely short journal; most issues are around 30 pages in length.
Each issue contains approximately four articles and one or two book
reviews. The main purpose of the Edith Wharton Review appears
to be the advertising of future Edith Wharton Society events; such
advertisements occupy a good deal of space in each issue. Although this
journal may not contain the most or the best articles about Edith
Wharton, it is still worth consulting since it is currently the only
journal that is completely devoted to Edith Wharton.
Henry James Review. Baton Rouge, LA: Henry James Society, 1979 -
(triannual).
Davis, 8th floor -- PS2124 .H46
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/henry_james_review/
(link accessed and verified on December
2, 2002)
In contrast to the Edith
Wharton Review, the Henry James Review is a lengthy
publication with a very academic tone. Although, as its title implies,
the journal focuses mainly on the life and work of Henry James, one of
Edith Wharton's closest friends, the journal regularly features
articles about Edith Wharton, who is said to have been influenced by
James. It is interesting to contrast the view of Wharton presented in
the Henry James Review with that presented by her various
biographers, for Henry James scholars generally suggest that James had
a very strong influence on Wharton's writing, while Wharton scholars
feel that James's influence has been greatly exaggerated.
Modern Fiction Studies.
West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 1955 - (quarterly).
Davis, 7th floor -- PS379 .M55
Electronic access available for University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students, and AHEC affiliates --
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/modern_fiction_studies/
(link accessed and verified on December 2, 2002)
This journal, according to its
web site, contains "theoretical, historical, interdisciplinary, and
cultural approaches to modern and contemporary narrative." 6,000-9,000
word articles are solicited from contributors and evaluated anonymously
by advisory editors. Two general issues and two special issues of Modern
Fiction Studies are published each year. General issues include
five or six essays and approximately 40 reviews of recent books that
deal with modern fiction and theory. Special issues are devoted to
announced topics and are edited either in-house or by selected guest
editors. Modern Fiction Studies is academic in tone although
very readable.
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Abstracts and indexes
The following sources are good
starting points for finding scholarly information about Edith Wharton's
life and/or literature. All sources can be accessed by selecting
E-Indexes
and Databases from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill:
Libraries home page or by clicking on the hyperlinks provided in this
pathfinder. Those publications for which
electronic access is available can be accessed easily from the UNC-CH
campus. Off-campus access to e-journals requires either faculty, staff,
or student status (in which case a 9-digit PID number is used to gain
access to the system) or AHEC affiliate status (in which case an AHEC
digital library account number is used to gain access to the system).
Useful search terms include
"Edith Wharton," titles of her works, and names of major characters in
her works.
Annual Bibliography of
English Language and Literature (ABELL)
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://lion.chadwyck.com/lion_ref_abell/search
(link accessed and verified on December
2, 2002)
According to the description
found on its home page, ABELL "contains over 750,000 records covering
monographs, periodical articles, critical editions of literary works,
book reviews, collections of essays and doctoral dissertations
published anywhere in the world from 1920 onwards. ABELL now includes
links to the full text of 102 journals." ABELL is updated annually.
Searches in ABELL can be limited to articles, books, reviews, literary
works, or can include all of these options. Additionally, users can
perform keyword, title keyword, subject, author / reviewer, publication
details, journal, or publication year searches. ABELL can also be
accessed through Literature Online (LION; discussed below). A keyword
search for "Edith Wharton" on November 10, 2002 yielded 1,106 records.
Dissertation Abstracts
Online
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|ID=53|SCRIPT=FSAUTH=?db=Dissertations
(link accessed and verified on December
2, 2002)
According to the description
found on its home page, Dissertation Abstracts Online selectively
covers dissertations and theses from the United States, Canada, Great
Britain, and Europe. The site claims to contain over 1,560,000 records
dating back to 1861. Updates are made monthly. Many different types of
searches can be conducted in Dissertation Abstracts Online, including
keyword, abstract, accession number, advisor, advisor phrase, author,
author phrase, descriptors, descriptors phrase, institution,
institution phrase, publication date, standard number, subject, subject
phrase, title, and title phrase. Searches can be limited by year,
language, degree type, and supplier availability and can be ranked by
either relevance or date. A keyword search for "Wharton Edith" on
November 10, 2002 yielded 334 records.
Literature Online (LION)
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://lion.chadwyck.com/
(link accessed and verified on December
2, 2002)
According to a description
provided by UNC-CH, LION "is the definitive electronic resource for the
study of English and American literature. Spanning 1,400 years, it
provides remote access to more than 260,000 fully searchable literary
texts. In addition it contains some major reference tools, secondary
sources, biographies, and bibliographies. It also offers a master index
of web sites selected for their quality and range of literary
materials. Users can retrieve a text in seconds or use the search
capabilities of LION to study the language of a literary work, find out
how it has influenced other writers, and make new connections that
cross centuries. LION brings together the contents of the following
databases in the following major categories into one, fully searchable
resource." A search for "Edith Wharton" on November 10, 2002 produced
50 bibliographic records, seven WWW texts, 1,200 works about Wharton,
and a fairly lengthy biographical essay adapted from data developed by
the H. W. Wilson Company, Inc.
MLA International
Bibliography
Electronic access available for
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty, staff, students,
and AHEC affiliates --
http://eresources.lib.unc.edu/cgi-bin/external_database_auth?A=P|F=Y|ID=173|URL=http://web5.silverplatter.com/webspirs/start.ws?customer=c15595&databases=S(MB)
(link accessed and verified on December 2, 2002)
According to the description
that can be accessed from its home page, the "MLA International
Bibliography, produced by the Modern Language Association of America,
consists of bibliographic records pertaining to literature, language,
linguistics, and folklore and includes coverage from 1963 to the
present. The MLA International Bibliography provides access to
scholarly research in nearly 4,000 journals and series. It also covers
relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, bibliographies, and
other formats." Updates are made quarterly. Searches can be limited by
language, publication type, publication year, MLA's update code, or
URL. A subject search for "Edith Wharton" on November 10, 2002 produced
971 records.
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Bibliographies
The following sources are
intended to assist researchers in finding all of the works written by
Edith Wharton and/or all of the works written about her.
Brenni, Vito J. Edith
Wharton: A Bibliography. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University
Library, 1966.
Davis, 8th floor -- Z8969 .2 .B7
Although by far the shortest
bibliography of Edith Wharton, Brenni's version is notable in that it
was the first that was intended "to list by title all her novels, short
stories, poems, essays, nonfiction, etc. In addition, all the essays
about her and her writings are listed, as well as biographies, critical
works, and theses. Book reviews, translations, and drama and films
based on her works are given. Book reviews shorter than 150 words are
omitted" (vii). Due to its completeness, it is often cited by other
Wharton scholars.
Lauer, Kristin O. and
Margaret P. Murray. Edith Wharton: An Annotated Secondary
Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990.
Davis, 8th floor -- Z8969 .2 .L38 1990
Considerably lengthier than the
Brenni bibliography, Lauer and Murray's bibliography was arranged using
a subject format in order to make it easy for researchers to use. There
are 15 chapters in the work that cover everything from book-length
studies and essay collections to general discussions of Edith Wharton
to reviews of the short story collections. Additionally, there are four
indexes (author, title, subject, and works). The annotations supplied
by the authors make this book useful for a researcher trying to
evaluate whether a particular article would be relevant to his or her
line of study.
Garrison, Stephen. Edith
Wharton: A Descriptive Bibliography. Pittsburgh: University of
Pittsburgh Press, 1990.
Davis, 8th floor -- Z8969 .2 .G37 1990
Lauer and Murray suggested in
the preface to their bibliography that their text, a secondary
bibliography, be used on conjunction with Garrison's work, a primary
bibliography. Garrison's work contains full listings of the first
publication of items written by Edith Wharton. Chapter topics include
separate publications, collected editions, first book and pamphlet
appearances, first-appearance contributions to magazines and
newspapers, and books edited by Wharton. Garrison's text is notable for
its inclusion of a facsimile of the title page and copyright page of
each of Wharton's works, as well as for its detailed notes about each
work.
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Web
resources
Rather surprisingly, there
appears to be a dearth of quality web sites that deal with the life
and/or works of Edith Wharton. Many of the sites that can be found on
the Web deal only with one or two of Wharton's works or deal with a
very specific aspect of her life, such as one of the houses in which
she lived. It is relatively easy to locate web sites that were created
by Wharton fans, but many of these contain errors, and none were
comprehensive enough for them to be considered for inclusion in this
pathfinder.
The Edith Wharton Society
Home Page
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/wharton/index.html
(link accessed and verified on December 2, 2002)
Site last updated on October 25, 2002
The Edith Wharton Society home
page is hosted by Gonzaga University. In addition to the web site that
the Society maintains, the Society also sponsors a discussion list,
WHARTON-L. The site focuses primarily on the activities of the Society,
which include annual meetings, sessions, and special conferences, in
addition to publication of The Edith Wharton Review, which
was discussed previously in this pathfinder. Still, though, the web
site includes a brief biography of Edith Wharton; a list of her primary
works, including access to the full text of works published before
1923; a list of summaries and discussion questions submitted by members
of the Society; a list of bibliographies on individual works as well as
on selected topics; a guide intended to assist teachers in preparing
lectures about Edith Wharton and her works; a listing of links to other
recommended Wharton web sites; etc. Many of the links given on the
Edith Wharton Society home page direct researchers to sites created by
Wharton fans, so it is recommended that the researcher evaluate them
carefully.
Edith Wharton's World:
Portraits of People and Places
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm
(link accessed and verified on December
2, 2002)
Date of last update unknown
This site is highly recommended
by other Wharton web sites. It contains several portraits of Edith
Wharton and her contemporaries; all portraits were part of an
exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery
from September 26, 1997 to January 25, 1998. The portraits are
presented along with a biographical sketch of Wharton. Although only a
limited number of portraits appear, this site is notable for the
quality of the portraits presented. The biographical information
presented, although brief, provides a good introduction to Edith
Wharton's life and works. No links to additional information about
Wharton are given, though, so this site acts as a stand-alone source of
information about Edith Wharton.
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About this pathfinder
This pathfinder was created to
meet the requirements of Information Resources and Services I (aka INLS
111), a course offered by the School of Information and Library Science
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Comments or questions about this
pathfinder should be directed to Cynthia
Thomes.
This page was created on November
5, 2002. It was last updated on December 2, 2002.
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