"Candace 'Waid's authoritative edition of" The a collectioln of exceptionally illuminatineo hiographieal, critical, and historical texts her richly researched assemblage of period comments on 'old New lunatic ferocity of the society in wlnichWharton's great novel is so brilliantly set.

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Text of The Age of Innocence

Background and Contexts

 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND BIOGRAPHY

 Letters

 To Rutger B. Jewett, January 5, 1920

 To Bernard Berenson, December 12, 1920

 To Mary Cadwalader Jones, February 17, 1921

 To Sinclair Lewis, August 6, 1921

 To Mary Cadwalader Jones, April 11, 1927

 Candace Waid·[A Biographical Note on Edith

 Wharton]

 Edith Wharton·A Little Girl's New York

 Edith Wharton·From A Backward Glance

 [The Background]

 Little Girl

 R. W. B. Lewis·From Edith Wharton: A Biography

 [Entry into Society]

 [A Broken Engagement]

 [Marriage and Sexual Ignorance]

Sources

 LITERARY SOURCES

 Honor6 de Balzac·From Contes dr61atiques

 Innocence

 The Danger of Being Too Innocent

 Edith Wharton·The Valley of Childish Things, and

 Other Emblems

 Edith Wharton·The New Frenchwoman

 TIME AND MONEY: ECONOMIC CONTEXTS AND THE SHIFTING

 NARRATIVES OF ETHNIC POWER

 [The Source for the Beaufort Scandal]

 The Panic: Excitement in Wall Street·New York

 Times, September 19, 1873

 The Financial Crisis: More Failures Yesterday ·

 New York Times, September 20, 1873

 Panics·The Nation, September 25, 1873

 THE BUSINESS OF SOCIETY: CONTEMPORARY COMMENTARY ON

 THE NEW YORK ARISTOCRACY

 "Secrets of Ball Giving": A Chat with Ward McAllister

 How He Came to Be a Famous Ball Organizer

 Reminiscences of Cotillion Dinners

 Beginning His Experience at Newport

 Objects of the Patriarchs Society

 Duplicate Invitations Prevented

 Society's Limits Narrowing

 Famous Dinners of Recent Years

 Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Sherwood·From Manners and

 Social Usages

 Preface

 The Etiquette of Balls

 Fashionable Dancing

 [On Serving Roman Punch]

 [Recipes for Roman Punch]·From The Encyclopedia

 of Practical Cookery and Cookery and Housekeeping

 Francis W. Crowninshield·From Manners for the

 Metropolis: An Entrance Key to the Fantastic

 Life of the 400

 Mrs. Burton Harrison·The Myth of the Four Hundred

 CHANGING MORES IN NEW NEW YORK: THE ROMANCE OF

 LEISURE AND THE SPECTER OF DIVORCE

 James Maurice Thompson·The Long Bow

 Clarence Satterlee·[The Living Waxworks]

 Charles Dickens·From The Old Curiosity Shop

 John H. Young·The Language of Flowers

 Kate Greenaway·From Language of Flowers

 Divorce and Marriage in New-York·New York

 Tribune, October 7, 1883

Criticism

 REVIEWS: AMERICAN

 Katharine Perry·Were the Seventies Sinless?

 William Lyon Phelps·As Mrs. Wharton Sees Us

 Carl Van Doren·An Elder America

 Henry Seidel Canby·Our America

 R. D. Townsend·The Book Table: Devoted to Books

 and Their Makers, Novels Not for a Day

 Anonymous·Mrs. Wharton's Novel of Old New York

 Vernon L. Parrington, Jr.·Our Literary Aristocrat

 REVIEWS: BRITISH

 Anonymous·The Age of Innocence

 Anonymous·The Innocence of New York

 Katherine Mansfield·Family Portraits

 Frederick Watson·The Assurance of Art

 MODERN CRITICISM

 Julia Ehrhardt·"To Read These Pages Is To Live

 Again": The Historical Accuracy of The Age

 of Innocence

 Jennifer Rae Greeson·Wharton's Manuscript Outlines

 for The Age of Innocence: Three Versions

 Cynthia Griffin Wolff·[The Age of Innocence as a

 Bildungsroman]

 Elizabeth Ammons·Cool Diana and the Blood-Red

 Muse: Edith Wharton on Innocence and Art

 Nancy Bentley·[Realism, Relativism, and the

 Discipline of Manners]

 Anne MacMaster·Wharton, Race, and The Age of

 Innocence: Three Historical Contexts

 Dale M. Bauer·[Whiteness and the Powers of

 Darkness in The Age of Innocence]

 Brian T. Edwards·The Well-Built Wall of Culture:

 Old New York and Its Harems

 Brigitte Peucker·Scorsese's Age of Innocence:

 Adaptation and Intermediality

Edith Wharton: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography