The stultifying claustrophobia of turn-of-the-century American "society" - a milieu whose deadly disapproval, presumably, Edith Wharton experienced at first hand after she was divorced from her wealthy Boston husband in 1913 - is beautifully expressed in these elegant little stories, first published in the US in 1964 but unavailable in print on this side of the Atlantic until fifteen years ago. Though they are set in Italy and France as well as America, they invariably feature expatriate Americans and inevitably focus on the misfortunes of women who fall foul, whether privately or publicly, of the accepted status quo; but beneath their genteel and quietly ironic surface, a keenly-felt longing for the freedom to live and love as one chooses beats like a savage heart.
