The widespread reurgence of interest in Edith Wharton's career since the 1970s has restored to print most of her fiction, travel books and writings on architecture, gardening and interior decoration. However, her numerous exercises in literary criticism have been overlooked. Never before collected into one volume, this book contains Wharton's literary criticism writings. The writings cover works of various literary traditions, including general considerations of fiction and criticism and embracing novels, verse, and works by other critics of literature, art and architecture. An introductory essay places Wharton's critical prose in the context of her career as a whole and draws on many unpublished materials in exploring the incertainties and inhibitions against which she had to struggle in order to express herself.