The New York Quartet

Author: Edith Wharton

Henry James predicted a prominent place in American literature for his friend Edith Wharton, and within a few decades, she became the highest-paid novelist of her era. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for her novel "The Age of Innocence," and also the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University. Critics praised Edith Wharton's ability to describe New York's wealthy society, as she was not an outsider to it. Rather, she was descended from an aristocratic family. In her autobiography, she states: "Society was before me in all its triviality and absurdity, inviting me to describe it because it was the subject closest to me, having grown up in this society since childhood, and I do not need to refer back to memoirs and encyclopedias to understand it." In this quartet, Wharton chronicles the changes that occurred in New York society over four decades, through characters who did not gain favor or appreciation, but rather were stigmatized by society in one way or another. Reading the quartet afterward as a complete whole, not as separate stories, opens new horizons for us and deepens our understanding of New York City as Wharton saw it.