EDITH WHARTON ON AUDIO Volume One

A social climber hires a reporter to rehabilitate her reclusive estranged husband’s reputation; a divorcée tries to reenter New England society for the sake of her daughter’s impending nuptials; an aspiring writer and her clergyman uncle conspire to gain notoriety by her writing a scandalous book that he condemns from the pulpit. At first, these three stories of high-society misdeeds in the Gilded Age may strike the uninitiated as no longer relevant. But Wharton’s psychological insight, her apt humor, and especially the sheer patrician beauty of her writing transcend the quotidian references of their time. Of the three intelligent and expressive narrators heard in this volume, Tod Randolph stands out for her adroit and mellifluous delivery of the author’s artistic and thematic values. Y.R. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2011]