Old New York
False Dawn, The Old Maid, The Spark, New Year's Day (Novellas)
A series of four interconnected novellas, painting a vivid portrait of New York through the middle of the 19th century.
In the 1840s, Lewis Raycie is sent to Europe by his father to purchase art by famous painters. The elder Raycie, a self-made man, wants to establish a family dynasty and hopes that a respected art gallery well help entrench his family in New York’s upper crust. But when his son returns home with works by cutting edge but unknown artists, it threatens to tear this fledgling family apart.
In the 1850s, Delia Ralston’s cousin Charlotte is about to be married but has a dilemma. Her husband-to-be wishes her to give up her work at an orphanage where,…
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November 15, 2016The upper stratum of New York society into which Edith Wharton was born in 1862 provided her with an abundance of material as a novelist but did not encourage her growth as an artist. Educated by tutors and governesses, she was raised for only one career: marriage. But her marriage, in 1885, to Edward Wharton was an emotional disappointment, if not a disaster. She suffered the first of a series of nervous breakdowns in 1894. In spite of the strain of her marriage, or perhaps because of it, she began to write fiction and published her first story in 1889. Her first published book was a guide to interior decorating, but this was followed by several novels and story collections. They…