Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works of Wharton (1862-1937) such as The Age of Innocence for which she won the Pulitzer Prize and was the first woman to do so, The House of Mirth, and The Custom of the Country. Her novels explore the world of privileged New Yorkers in the Gilded Age of the late C19th, of which she was part, drawing on her own experiences and written from the perspective of the new century, either side of WW1 . Among her themes, she examined the choices available to women and the extent to which they could ever really be free, even if rich.
With
Dame Hermione Lee Biographer, former President of Wolfson College, Oxford
Bridget Bennett Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds
And
Laura Rattray Reader in North American Literature at the University of Glasgow
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
| 0:05.0 | There's a reading list to go with it on our website. |
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| 0:12.0 | I hope you enjoyed the programs. |
| 0:14.0 | Hello, Edith Wharton, 1862 to 1937, wrote of high society in America's Guilded Age, |
| 0:20.0 | which for women in her novels was more of a gilded cage. |
| 0:23.0 | Reputation was a woman's fortune. |
| 0:25.0 | Her way to a financially strong marriage and any blimish would lead to her ruin. |
| 0:29.0 | It was different for the man who could raise anything out, provided they remained solvent. |
| 0:33.0 | Wharton earned a Pulitzer Prize and millions of dollars from novels such as The House of Murth |
| 0:38.0 | and The Age of Innocence, written in France, where she settled for the freedom it brought her, |
| 0:42.0 | as well as a clear perspective on America from across the Atlantic. |
| 0:46.0 | We'd need to discuss the works and life of Edith Wharton, Ah, |
| 0:49.0 | their Mahmai Nli, Biographer and former President of Wolfson, God Jocsford, |
| 0:53.0 | Brigid Bennett, Professor of American Literature and Culture at the University of Leeds, |
| 0:57.0 | and Laura Attere, Rita in North America Literature at the University of Glasgow. |
| 1:01.0 | Ahmai Nli, what was the world in which she was born? |
| 1:05.0 | Yes, she was born into the New York-ledged classes. |
| 1:09.0 | They were wealthy. I mean, her family, I suppose, who were Joneses, |
| 1:13.0 | were supposed to originate the phrase, keeping up with the Joneses. |
| 1:17.0 | I'm not sure whether that's true or not. They weren't wealthy in the sort of Vanderbilt Aster level, |
... |
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