The architectural imagination of Edith Wharton

"Recent movies, books, even news pieces have returned Edith Wharton to prominence as a major American novelist. However, few readers have taken her architectural work as seriously as she herself did, or noticed its profound effect on her career. The purpose of this book is to track Wharton's architectural and literary achievements in tandem so as to reveal their complex relationship. Like her writing career, the book begins and ends in her fierce attachment to traditional values, moves from her early delight in Italy to her midlife despair for France, and centers in the brilliantly crafted structures and spaces of the early New York novels."--Jacket.