Feminist Readings of Edith Wharton

"This book views Edith Wharton as a specific woman authoring women s stories at a specific historical moment. Chambers reminds us why we still need feminism: her examination of four of Wharton s novels illuminates the pervasive and damaging matrix of storytelling, power, and gender." - Jennifer Haytock, Associate Professor of English at SUNY College at Brockport and author of Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism " Feminist Readings of Edith Wharton offers a lens through which we can reassess Wharton s cultural critique, one that helped Wharton and the women authors who followed her gain a fuller, more authoritative participation in literary production. Through illuminating discussions of four major Wharton texts - The House of Mirth , Summer , The Reef , and The Glimpses of the Moon - Chambers explores the complex and somewhat contradictory relationship between Wharton s gender training and her evolution as a woman who eventually assumed the prerogatives of authorship . . .The volume is a valuable addition to our ongoing study of Wharton, narratology, and gender." - Marilyn Elkins, Professor of English, California State University, Los Angeles