Both her parents had come from distinguished families who belonged to that small and exclusive group which constituted "old New York"--the safe and circumscribed world that was swept into history by the newly wealthy vulgarians of post-Civil War America. In
A Backward Glance (1934) Wharton tells an anecdote that captures one part of the problem. Her mother, Lucretia Rhinelander Jones, was beautiful in her young womanhood, exquisitely dressed and universally admired. One day Edith's aunt Mary Newbold asked the little girl what she would like to be when she grew up. "The best-dressed woman in New York," the child replied; when Aunt Mary voiced surprise at such an ambition, Edith rejoined, "But Auntie, you know Mamma
is." Edith Jones's marriage to Teddy Wharton of Boston (a man from a social class much like her own) merely reinforced the exclusive social status which her ancestry had conferred.
Wharton's best work was done before 1922; her writing after that time is less powerful--the satire is not so biting, and the poignancy of emotional drama is less acute. Moreover, Wharton's field of scrutiny remained relatively narrow, focusing primarily on the "American aristocracy" to which her parents had belonged.
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