The Writing of Fiction

A thorough examination of the process of writing fiction from one of America’s great female authors of the 20th century, including: New preface discussing artistic historical context and contemporary relevance List of cited authors in order of first mention List of cited works in order of first mention Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was brilliant, well-educated, well-read, well-traveled, privileged, and prolific. Wharton was, one might say, an influencer of her time. Her body of work encompasses 15 novels, seven novellas, 80-plus short stories, poems, plays, and nonfiction writings spanning travel, design, criticism, war articles, and a memoir. In 1921, she was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her most famous novel, The Age of Innocence. In 1925, she published The Writing of Fiction, an extraordinary window into her perspectives on her art, her process, and her view of the evolution of fiction: “an art in the making, fluent and dirigible”. Despite our often unhe