Certain People

By Edith Wharton

Originally published in 1930, Certain People is a collection of six short stories. The book starts with Atrophy, a neat study of near desperation in tight social surroundings as Nora Frenway bravely seeks to visit her gravely ill lover Christopher only to come up against the polite rebuff presented by his domineering sister Jane Aldiss. The final story, Mr Jones, references Poe's The Purloined Letter, using a variation of the central epistolary device while also managing to slip in aspects of Poe's own life history, in particular his marriage to the his young first cousin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781291637236

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married Boston socialite 'Teddy' Wharton but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. The couple travelled frequently to Europe and settled in France, where Wharton stayed until her death in 1937. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911) and The Reef (1912). She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War.