- Paperback
- Publisher: Harpercollins; Reprint edition (Feb 1991)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 006097379X
- ISBN-13: 978-0060973797
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.6 x 1.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,289,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
The Touchstone (The Art of the Novella)
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Product Description
Product Description
Stephen Glennard, an impoverished lawyer in the glamorous and money-driven society of New York, has one valuable possession: the letters written to him by the eminent and now deceased author Margaret Aubyn. He has seldom read the letters - he took their writer for granted herself - but they assume an importance for Glennard when it becomes clear that their financial worth will ensure his future stability and pay for his marriage to the beautiful Alexa Trent. What he fails to realise is that Aubyn's ghost, once unleashed upon the reading public, will exercise an influence over his own life that reduces all his hopes and pleasures to ashes.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
From the Author
Edith Wharton’s reputation stands in the shade of her more famous male contemporary and friend, Henry James, as a graceful larch might to a venerable yew. All intimacies involve a degree of reciprocity, and without question the two novelists informed and influenced each other’s work, not simply with respect to subject matter and outlook but also to style: the famously – or notoriously, according to your preferences – complex parenthetical rhythms of James resonate, if less taxingly, in the decorous prose of Edith Wharton, just as her colleague’s scrutinising focus on the discreet dance of consciousness and human interconnectedness echoes in her subtle themes.
Both Wharton and James were fascinated by the lurking, misty dangers that inevitably accompany the exercise of free will; in the diabolical traps we set ourselves through self-referential obtuseness and self-protective blindness. No theme is more compelling to either novelist than the human tendency to squander true freedom – the freedom of conscience or the unsullied soul – in the pursuit of the, seemingly wider, scope and vistas in which to play out fantasies of self-fulfilment. Any act of choice involves a necessary limitation, and the aetiology of moral choice, and its attendant unforeseen consequences, forms the root of high drama in the works of both novelists.
The Touchstone, first published in 1900, is a taut novella with reverberations of two of James’s finest late novels, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl. Both the better-known novels and the novella examine the ways in which love, however authentic, can be vitiated through the violation of another’s affection and trust. - From the Foreword by Salley Vickers --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Both Wharton and James were fascinated by the lurking, misty dangers that inevitably accompany the exercise of free will; in the diabolical traps we set ourselves through self-referential obtuseness and self-protective blindness. No theme is more compelling to either novelist than the human tendency to squander true freedom – the freedom of conscience or the unsullied soul – in the pursuit of the, seemingly wider, scope and vistas in which to play out fantasies of self-fulfilment. Any act of choice involves a necessary limitation, and the aetiology of moral choice, and its attendant unforeseen consequences, forms the root of high drama in the works of both novelists.
The Touchstone, first published in 1900, is a taut novella with reverberations of two of James’s finest late novels, The Wings of the Dove and The Golden Bowl. Both the better-known novels and the novella examine the ways in which love, however authentic, can be vitiated through the violation of another’s affection and trust. - From the Foreword by Salley Vickers --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"The Touchstone" is Edith Wharton's second book and it was published in 1900. It was also published under the title "A Gift From The Grave". Her previous literary effort was a collection of short stories titled "The Greater Inclination" and this is a longer story, roughly what we would today call a novella. The author takes an interesting premise, and creates an engaging story which is easy to read and flows quickly. The reader doesn't want to put this book down.
The premise of the story is that a man (Glennard) of limited means is looking for a way to earn money so that he can afford to marry the woman he loves (Alexa Trent). Earlier in his life, he was loved by Mrs. Aubyn, who has become a famous author and since died. Thus he is in possession of the letters she wrote him, and due to her fame he could publish them, but that would not be proper in his mind, and he feels that he would not be worthy of Alexa Trent if he did such a thing.
Of course, the reader immediately knows that he is going to have to do this unthinkable thing, and the interesting part of the story is how it affects Glennard and his relationship with Alexa Trent, and with Flemel, the friend from whom he seeks the advice initially, and who helps him get the letters published. Glennard destroys one relationship, and nearly destroys the other, and often lashes out irrationally when the book is discussed. He is constantly trying to figure out who knows, and who Flemel might have told, and if his wife has figured it out, even when he tries to make it obvious that he has done the deed.
It is an interesting story about the turmoil which people go through when circumstances force them to act in a way which they wouldn't ordinarily do. Many people today might not understand why Glennard is even troubled by the idea of publishing the correspondence of someone who has passed on, but it certainly works well for the period in which it was written. This is even better than her first book, though I don't think it merits five stars.
The premise of the story is that a man (Glennard) of limited means is looking for a way to earn money so that he can afford to marry the woman he loves (Alexa Trent). Earlier in his life, he was loved by Mrs. Aubyn, who has become a famous author and since died. Thus he is in possession of the letters she wrote him, and due to her fame he could publish them, but that would not be proper in his mind, and he feels that he would not be worthy of Alexa Trent if he did such a thing.
Of course, the reader immediately knows that he is going to have to do this unthinkable thing, and the interesting part of the story is how it affects Glennard and his relationship with Alexa Trent, and with Flemel, the friend from whom he seeks the advice initially, and who helps him get the letters published. Glennard destroys one relationship, and nearly destroys the other, and often lashes out irrationally when the book is discussed. He is constantly trying to figure out who knows, and who Flemel might have told, and if his wife has figured it out, even when he tries to make it obvious that he has done the deed.
It is an interesting story about the turmoil which people go through when circumstances force them to act in a way which they wouldn't ordinarily do. Many people today might not understand why Glennard is even troubled by the idea of publishing the correspondence of someone who has passed on, but it certainly works well for the period in which it was written. This is even better than her first book, though I don't think it merits five stars.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2 reviews
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Surprisingly Contemporary - 100 years ahead of its time
3 Sep 1998
Format:Hardcover
Because I am adapting this novella for Warner Bros as a feature film, I'm interested in hearing what readers have to say about it. This is Wharton's first novella, written at a time when she was still developing her craft as a writer; the story can appear woefully underwritten. Still, the story is mesmerizing and dangerous, a Faustian tale of betrayal, greed and the consequences paid, and the more often I read through it, the more hidden meanings emerge. When you read it, think of the lover who sold Princess Diana's first secrets of their affair to the tabloids, and the consequences since. What ever happened to that man? Perhaps, like Stephen Glennard in "The Touchstone", he has gone mad from guilt, which, ironically enough, might prove he has a conscious after all.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Question: is this the same book as Ethan Frome?
21 Jan 2010
Format:Kindle Edition
Just a question: is this the same book as Ethan Frome? (The picture shown is a cover of Ethan Frome.
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