The Touchstone

by Edith Wharton, Joseph Henry Patrick Brown, Thomas Brassey

Overview

Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money. So when he becomes aware of the potential value of a series of passionate love letters written to him by the recently deceased author Margaret Aubyn, he sells them and marries the beautiful Alexa Trent. However, his shame and guilt at building a new life on the betrayal of another's love slowly begins to eat away at him, and Margaret's memory has a power that can reach him from beyond the grave.

The first of Edith Wharton's works depicting life in “old New York”, The Touchstone is an acutely observed novella , and an exploration of the tension between self-serving opportunism and the desire to live a moral life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473395459
Publisher:	Read Books Ltd.
Publication date:	07/07/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	116
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American author best known for the novel The Age of Innocence, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921, making her the first female winner of the award.

Date of Birth:

January 24, 1862

Date of Death:

August 11, 1937

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France

Education:

Educated privately in New York and Europe

Table of Contents

	Foreword	vii
	The Touchstone	1
	Notes	93
	Biographical note	95

Editorial Reviews

Wharton's 1900 novel is a money-can't-buy-happiness tale. Down-on-his-luck Stephen Glennard sells a collection of letters from a celebrated dead author. His decision to market the letters gets him money and an entrance into society, but a mystery contained in the missives haunts him. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

They [Edith Wharton and Henry James] are giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature.” —Gore Vidal

From the Publisher

A very unsual and brillant short novel in which a singular situation is worked out with that searching accuracy and psychological detail which characterized Mrs. Wharton’s short stories.”

Dial

The Touchstone is without doubt expertly written, and it contains a number of the beautifully articulated insights into the ambiguities of the moral life at which Edith Wharton was becoming a master.”

biographer R. W. B. Lewis

A forgotten Edith Wharton gem.”

Atlantic