Analyzing Wharton's life and writings, the author demonstrates how interrelated identity systems are reflected in Wharton's work. From sexual repression and a celibate marriage to the discovery of passion in a love affair, Wharton's sexual education embraced a range of experiences and emotions.
Starting with the tensions in the early family constellation, Gloria C. Erlich traces Edith Wharton's erotic evolution-from her early repression of sexuality and her celibate marriage to her discovery of passion in a rapturous midlife love affair with the bisexual Morton Fullerton. Analyzing the novelist's life, letters, and fiction, Erlich reveals several interrelated identity systems-the filial, the sexual, and the creative-that evolved together over the course of Wharton's lifetime.
