Edith Wharton's Social Register

CLAIRE PRESTON is Fellow and Lecturer in English at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and Newton Trust Lecturer in the Faculty of English, Cambridge University.

• List of Abbreviations List of Illustrations Preface with Acknowledgements PART ONE: TRIBES The Force of Negation The Deaf and Dumb Asylum Boundaries and Bounders Men at Work Image of Snow: Whartonian Womanhood Libraries and Studies: Where Real Things Happen to Men PART TWO: OUTCASTS Wharton's Social Darwinism Maps of Exclusion Rituals of Casting Out Reconditioned Malefactors PART THREE: BUCCANEERS Product Placement Buccaneers Exploit and Industry: the Elmer Epic The Steep of Disenchantment 'Beyond' Epic Effrontery The Bareness of a Small Half-lit Place The Firebird and the Watersprite PART FOUR: EXPATRIATES The Lesson of the Master: James and Wharton outre-mer Home Thoughts from Abroad: America and Americanity Plunder: Buccaneers go to Europe When They Die 'Did You Ever See Anything So French?': Assimilators Children of Flanders: How the War Made Europe a Real Place Bibliography Index

'Claire Preston's appropriately elegant Edith Wharton's Social Register studies the modes by which Wharton registers her perennial interest in the politics of inclusion and exclusion...Preston's alert, appreciative readings maintain Wharton's most intrinsic aesthetic: the art of the fine distinction.' - Sarah Churchwell, Times Literary Supplement