Description:

Wharton Edith 1862 - 1937 Early Edith Wharton ALS from Manhattan about the ... "kind invitation to the Students' Association of Miss Hersey's School"

Cream bifold mourning stationery with black borders, on "884 Park Avenue" letterhead. Free flowing script inscribed in black ink and signed "Edith Wharton" at top of second page. Dated "April 22nd" and written from Edith Wharton's Manhattan townhouse sometime between 1892 and 1899. Addressed to one "Miss Howard", likely a faculty member or student enrolled at Miss Hersey's School for Girls located in Boston, MA. In extremely fine condition, each page measuring 4.375" x 6.875". Expected central fold marks do not detract from bright condition of paper and ink.

Letter content in its entirety is below:

"April 22nd

884 Park Avenue.

My dear Miss Howard,

I am in receipt of the kind invitation to the Students' Association of Miss Hersey's School to be present at their annual luncheon on May 27th, and I am sorry that the impossibility of being in Boston at that time obliges me to decline.

Will you kindly express my regrets to the Association, & believe me, with many thanks,

Sincerely Yours,

Edith Wharton"

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) is celebrated for the quality and quantity of her written works. Her first book was not published until age forty, yet Wharton produced an astonishing volume of poetry, short stories, novels, plays, travel stories, ghost stories, essays, and non-fiction. Many of these works provide enduring commentary on American life in the Gilded Age. Wharton traveled extensively through Europe with her parents during her childhood and grew up in elite social circles. She personally benefited from privileges of wealth and social status, but ideologically despised the societal mechanisms that preserved them, and the lengths that were taken to secure them. This criticism of the emerging American class of nouveaux riches appears frequently in her work.

Several factors must be considered to determine the year that this letter was written. The stationery letterhead indicates that Wharton wrote the letter sometime after November 1891, when she and her husband Teddy Wharton (1850-1928) finalized the purchase of their Manhattan townhouse. The letter refers to "Miss Hersey's School", which was a secondary school for girls operated between 1877 and 1899. Using these two parameters, we can safely assume that Wharton penned this letter sometime between spring 1892 and 1899. It is unknown for whom Wharton was mourning, although this would certainly narrow down our choice of years. During this period, Wharton attempted to publish some of her short stories, travel narratives, and poetry; her more famous novels were published during the next twenty years.

Maine-born Heloise E. Hersey graduated from Vassar College in 1876, about ten years after the prestigious women's college was established in Poughkeepsie, NY. Hersey operated the Boston school mentioned in this letter and taught Anglo-Saxon and rhetoric at Smith College in Northampton, MA. Wharton's literary reputation was beginning to be established in the 1890s, perhaps explaining her invitation to an annual school luncheon.

An eloquent letter of refusal, couched in delicate and socially acceptable language, in very fine condition.

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