The Descent of Man and Other Stories

Description

The Descent of Man and Other Stories by Edith Wharton shows the story-telling talent and the keen-eyed social criticism that made Wharton so famous and appreciated at their best.

The topics featured in the stories include love, friendship, marriage, there is even a ghost in one of them, and all feature the sharp, critical and witty style that is Wharton’s signature. The author’s criticism is directed against the higher circles of New York society. The title story is about a man of science who writes a book about religion that he means to be satirical, but is taken seriously and he then decides to go along with the misinterpretation; the second story, entitled The Other Two, is about how a man who married a woman with a child from her previous marriage comes to terms with the fact that the child’s father continues to participate in the family’s life; the third story is entitled Expiation and it is about a woman who gets her book published, while the fourth, entitled The Lady’s Maid’s Bell, is a ghost story revolving around an invalid woman, her newly hired maid and the story of those who have worked for the invalid woman before.

These are just four stories out of the ten comprised in the collection, the others being just as exciting. The stories were initially published between 1902 and 1904 in various newspapers and magazines including Collier’s Weekly, Scribner’s Magazine, Hearst’s International-Cosmopolitan and Harper’s Magazine. The stories were assembled into a book and published in the form of a collection in 1904 in two versions – one version included 10 stories, while the other had only 9, the one left out being the story entitled The Letter.
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