New York Society

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 85, 7 February 1941, Page 5

New York Society

WE are accustomed to say that in America "money : talks," but no amount of money would buy an entrance into the society in which Edith Wharton was born in 1862-a society composed of families that had been settled in the New England states for for over 200 years. Most of these families lived in or near New York, and spent their summers at Newport, that famous resort on the Atlantic Coast.

It was here that summer after summer Sir Thomas Lipton raced his yacht for the America's Cup, but he was never accepted by Newport society, because his wealth, great though it was, was gained through trade. Naturally many of Edith Wharton’s characters belong to that wealthy leisured class she knew so well. You saw them in the film " The Old Maid." You meet them in

"The House of Mirth," a novel she published in 1905. In "The Custom of the Country" she portrays, in a woman named Undine Spragg, a social climber. And in "The Age of Innocence," which appeared in 1920, she consciously tried to reproduce the New York society which she had known in her girlhood, and which, particularly since the war, had passed away for ever. The people of this social set were sophisticated, moving in mannered ease, people of taste, people who restrained their emotions and never made scenes; and such are the characters of many of Edith Wharton’s books and short stories.(From "A Few Minutes with Women Novelists": "Edith Wharton," by Margaret Johnston. 2YA, January 25.)