The date approaches when I enter into the matrimonial state. Soon I am to be united in perpetuity with a widower who possesses both a middling income and modest grounds. Time, it would seem, is our greatest benefactor; a mere few years ago, when I thought the title “Mistress of Pemberley” within my grasp, I might have scoffed at such
After one reads all of Jane Austen’s novels, one begins fumbling through the literary desert seeking the Next Jane. Eventually, the search alights on Edith Wharton. Wharton, like Austen, uses feather-light prose to describe juicy conflicts: marriages of convenience vs. love matches, rich people jockeying for status with the slightly less rich. It’s all extremely satisfying, except for the glaring difference: unlike Austen, who bestows happy endings on her heroines, Wharton is a pessimist: a curmudgeonly,…
