Edith Wharton, Summer

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Writing to a friend on December 21, 1916, Edith Wharton made some telling remarks about the “shortish novel” on which she was working. Designating it “as the Hot Ethan”, she explains that it is set “in the neighbourhood of Windsor Mountain”, with “the time being summer which is also the title of the book”, and she adds, “I don’t know how on earth the thing got itself written in the scramble & scuffle of my present life: but it

did

” (

Letters

385). As in the earlier

Ethan Frome

of 1911, Wharton in

Summer

turns again to the New England countryside of her Massachusetts home, The Mount, to examine the strained and barren lives of both its small town inhabitants and the mountain people of the Berkshires’ backward locales. Wharton’s surprise at its completion is…

3283 words

Citation: Bode, Rita. "Summer". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1797, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1797 Summer 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.