A Backward Glance An Autobiography

A Backward Glanceis Edith Wharton's vivid account of both her public and her private life. With richness and delicacy, it describes the sophisticated New York society in which Wharton spent her youth, and chronicles her travels throughout Europe and her literary success as an adult. Beautifully depicted are her friendships with many of the most celebrated artists and writers of her day, including her close friend Henry James.In his introduction to this edition, Louis Auchincloss calls the writing inA Backward Glance"as firm and crisp and lucid as in the best of her novels." It is a memoir that will charm and fascinate all readers of Wharton's fiction.

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 into one of New York's older and richer families and was educated here and abroad. Her works include the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Summer. As a keen observer and chronicler of society, she is without peer. Edith Wharton died in France in 1937.