Old New York quadriptych

A brief about the book Henry James predicted to his friend Edith Wharton a prestigious position in American literature, and within a few decades she became the highest-paid novelist of her era. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for her novel The Age of Innocence, and also the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University. Critics praised Edith Wharton's ability to describe the society of wealthy New Yorkers, as it was not foreign to her. She was the descendant of an aristocratic family, and in her autobiography she said: "Society, with all its triviality and absurdity, was before me, inviting me to describe it because it was the closest subject to me, having grown up in this society since childhood, and I do not need to refer to memoirs or encyclopedias to know it." In this tetralogy, Wharton traces the changes that occurred in New York society over four decades, through characters who did not gain favor or recognition. Society branded them with one thing or another. Reading the tetralogy as a whole, not as separate stories, opens new horizons for us and deepens our understanding of New York City as Wharton saw it.