Review
Tragic novel by Edith Wharton,published in 1911.Wharton's original style and her use of hard-edged irony and the flashback technique set Ethan Frome apart from the work of her contemporaries.The main characters are Ethan Frome,his wife Zenobia,called Zeena,and her young cousin Mattie Silver.Frome and Zeena marry after she nurses his mother in her last illness.Although Frome seems ambitious and intelligent,Zeena holds him back.When her young cousin Mattie comes to stay on their New England farm,Frome falls in love with her.But the social conventions of the day doom their love and their hopes.The story forcefully conveys Wharton's abhorrence of society's unbending standards of loyalty.Written while Wharton lived in France but before her divorce (1913),Ethan Frome became one of the best known and most popular of her works.-- The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"With each volume having an introduction by an acknowledged expert,and exhaustive notes,the World's Classics are surely the most desirable series and,all-round,the best value for the money."--Oxford Times
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Product Description
This Norton Critical Edition includes:the 1922 edition of the novel; nine letters on "Ethan Frome" from the years 1910-1912; contextual accounts of 19th-century American life; eight contemporary reviews of the novel; and seven recent critical assessments.
内容提要This Norton Critical Edition of Edith Wharton's celebrated novella is based on the first edition,published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1911.It is fully annotated for undergraduate readers."Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a rich selection of materials,some previously unavailable,for the study of contemporary psychological,social,and economic issues,as well as Wharton's private correspondence and writings and biographical accounts of the author.Arranged under two headings,"Criticism" reveals Ethan Frome's impact as both a literary work and a social commentary."Contemporary Reviews" consists of eight prominent assessments of Ethan Frome,including reviews from the New York Times Book Review,Outlook,The Nation,the Saturday Review,and those penned by Frederic Taber Cooper and Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant,among others."Modern Criticism" (1956-1991) includes seven interpretations of the novella by Lionel Trilling,Elizabeth Ammons,Judith Fryer,Jean Frantz Blackall,Lev Raphael,Candace Waid,and Cynthia Griffin Wolff.A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included..