The Greater Inclination

This was the book that announced Edith Wharton as a force in American letters. Published in 1899 when she was just 27, The Greater Inclination gathers eight works (seven stories and one short play) that reveal a young writer already mastering the dangerous art of excavating what simmers beneath the polished surface of polite society. Here are tales of desire and restraint, of men and women navigating the treacherous space between what they feel and what they may express. The opening piece introduces Danyers, a young man captivated by Mrs. Anerton, the mysterious widow of a celebrated poet, whose beauty was immortalized in verse but whose real life has been one of solitary grief. Throughout the collection, Wharton explores the gap between the roles people perform and the selves they bury, between the art that immortalizes and the lived experience that defies it. These are not mere sketches of Victorian manners but psychological portraits that anticipate the masterworks to come. For readers who wish to see a major talent in her first flowering.