The Old Maid: The 'Fifties

Edith Wharton

may 2023 · Open Road Media

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A young woman is caught between two mothers in 1850s Manhattan in this novella by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Age of Innocence.

Tina is a girl torn between two women. There is her adoptive mother, Delia Ralston, a member of one of Manhattan’s ruling families, and then there is Charlotte Lovell, the woman who gave her up so that she could have a chance at a better life. As Tina grows up, the tensions between Delia and Charlotte begin to fester as the two worry about what sort of woman Tina will become . . .

Originally published in Edith Wharton’s Old New York in 1924, The Old Maid examines ideas of motherhood, class, gender, and society while detailing the complex relationships between women. The novella was adapted into a Pulitzer Prize–winning stage play by Zoe Akins, which was in turn adapted into a feature film starring Bette Davis.

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Edith Wharton (1862–1937) published more than forty books during her lifetime, including the classic Gilded Age society novels Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence, for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.