‘THE GREAT PANORAMA’: EDITH WHARTON AS HISTORICAL NOVELIST

The intertextual relationship of Edith Wharton's historical novels The Valley of Decision (1902) and The Age of Innocence (1920) is not often discussed. Indeed, The Valley is more usually analysed in the context of Wharton's Italian non-fiction texts, Italian Villas and their Gardens (1904) and Italian Backgrounds (1905), rather than in conjunction with her New York society novels. We believe that these novels mark, at two defining moments of her career, Wharton's distinctive sense of the purpose of the historical novel and its subject. In particular, they illustrate her sustained interest in periods of rapid social and political change.