Teaching Edith Wharton’s Major Novels and Short Fiction

“Ferdâ Asya’s collection of essays is the first book to address the crucial issue of teaching one of the most important masters of American fiction. The essays in this intriguing volume reveal a remarkable variety of useful pedagogical approaches to Wharton's fiction. In their representation of a wide range of critical approaches and insistence on exploring the full range of her literary achievement, these essays provide new testimony to the enduring power of the writer and her work.” - Alfred Bendixen, Princeton University, USA, and Executive Director of American Literature Association “This is a rousing collection of essays on how to make Edith Wharton relevant to twenty-first century students. With a deep understanding of the student mindset, this volume employs fresh insight and remarkable creativity to help a new generation grasp the more germane points of this surprisingly modern and still unmatched American author.” - Jennie Fields, author of The Age of Desire (2012) and Atomic Love (2020) “This volume offers essays that will guide new and experienced instructors of Wharton’s fiction. The contributors take a variety of Wharton’s texts as their subjects and approach the teaching of her work from a range of perspectives, from different theoretical contexts to varying roles in the curricula. This volume will spark new and creative approaches to teaching Wharton’s well-known and highly complex body of fiction.” - Jennifer Haytock, Professor, SUNY Brockport, USA, and author of Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism (2008) This book translates recent scholarship into pedagogy for teaching Edith Wharton’s widely celebrated and less-known fiction to students in the twenty-first century. It comprises such themes as American and Europeancultures, material culture, identity, sexuality, class, gender, law, history, journalism, anarchism, war, addiction, disability, ecology, technology, and social media in historical, cultural, transcultural, international, and regional contexts. It includes Wharton’s works compared to those of other authors, taught online, read in foreign universities, and studied in film adaptations.