How Can We Read Edith Wharton Today?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/t-magazine/edith-wharton-custom-of-the-country.html
The British Royal Family
Sections
How Can We Read Edith Wharton Today?
Published in 1913, “The Custom of the Country” follows the social rise of Undine Spragg, a fictional character who, in many ways, feels very modern.
An undated photograph of Edith Wharton.Credit.Courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
This essay is part of T’s
(1913),
like much that Edith Wharton wrote, can be described as a novel of manners. That’s to say, a social fiction in which the carefully observed customs of a particular society shape the characters’ actions and the plot. The designation somehow implies frivolity, or at least, traditionally, the feminine or domestic sphere (Jane Austen could be considered the first author of such works); and in this period of profound crisis in American society, it might seem easy to dismiss the r
10 Offbeat Stories You Might Have Missed This Week (5/18/19)
Another week has passed, which means that it is time, once again, to look at some of the bizarre stories that made the headlines recently. If you want to read up on last week’s list, click here.
This week, we have two stories on mysterious texts and ciphers. One is carved into a rock in France, while the other one is considered a Holy Grail of cryptography. Another mystery would be who keeps drawing penises on the sports fields of Melbourne.
There is also a secret chamber in Rome, a brewery in the United States, and a Danish politician with a unique strategy to reach his constituents.
Advertisement
Author Edward Brooke-Hitching spent nearly a decade searching for the weirdest books in the world - and his investigations have paid off in spellbinding style.
He has bound together a cornucopia of curiosities in a fascinating tome called The Madman s Library, published by Simon & Schuster, which reveals the strangest books and manuscripts ever written, and the stories behind their creation.
He documents books bound in human skin, a commode disguised as book, a bible that conceals a pistol, cryptic passages that not even military codebreakers can crack, Martian writing channelled through a psychic, pacts with the Devil, a war diary written on a violin, books so minuscule they re invisible to the human eye and a giant medieval book that weighs 74kg.