The Descent of Man and Other Stories: Stories of American Manners and Marriage

A scientist writes a satire of popular science, the public takes it for the real thing, and success turns him into what he was mocking. Around the title story Wharton set the rest of her 1904 collection: a woman whose third husband has to do business with the other two, a lady novelist who needs a scandal to sell her book, a ghost story about a lady's maid and a bell, a childless couple managed by the girl they adopt, and a divorce seen from the side that did not want it. She had watched New York society and the book trade at close range, and these stories are unusually merciless. Fifty-eight plates of quiet interiors and domestic scenes, from The Tea Party to Rest, by painters such as Henry Sargent and Vilhelm Hammershøi, match Wharton's merciless eye for the rooms where manners and marriages are made.

© 2026 Aeneas Press (E-bog): 9785501150430

Udgivelsesdato

E-bog: 16. september 2026