The Greater Inclination (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By Edith Wharton

Wharton’s first (1899) published collection of short stories ranges from light humor, social commentary, deception, and travel, to the darkly Gothic. Includes “The Muse's Tragedy,” “A Journey,” “The Pelican,” “Souls Belated,” “A Coward,” “A Cup of Cold Water,” “The Portrait,” and a short play, “The Twilight of the Gods.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Mar 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411435391

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Having grown up in an upper-class, tightly controlled society known as “Old New York” at a time when women were discouraged from achieving anything beyond a proper marriage, Wharton broke through these strictures to become one of that society’s fiercest critics as well as one of America’s greatest writers. The author of more than 40 books in 40 years, Wharton’s oeuvre includes classic works of American literature such as The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence, and Ethan Frome, as well as authoritative works on architecture, gardens, interior design, and travel.

Reviews for The Greater Inclination (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

[amourfou-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I am a dedicated fan of Edith Wharton, and probably should have appreciated these stories more as they are an opportunity to see her as she is finding her voice. Her singular, incisive way of seizing upon the way in which those who seem to have everything often turn out to have bargained away their selves, if not their souls, is there in each of the stories and the one short play included in this collection. Her protagonists are imprisoned within the bounds of social convention, just as they are in her later work, but here the plots are raw and lack the nuance that give Wharton's novels their timeless appeal.