Between 1930 and 1937, the year of her death, Edith Wharton published four original collections of short stories. The productions of a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer near the end of her career, these collections were almost universally praised, yet little detailed attention was given to individual stories in these collections. In the decades since Wharton's death, the ghost stories have received little critical commentary. To a great extent, Wharton's short fiction has been less discussed than her novels, and her fiction of social observation has been of greater interest to scholars than her supernatural fiction.

Since the 1970s, however, as the women's movement has prompted a reevaluation of neglected works by female writers, Wharton's ghost stories have been the focus of some critical discussion. In 1970, writing in Criticism magazine, Margaret B. McDowell argues that the true focus of Wharton's ghost stories is on the living characters and how their...