Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only

Primisch, Christine
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494190234165052

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts in English, Cleveland State University, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.
Edith Wharton is known for her depictions of the changing New York aristocracy and marriage market in the early twentieth-century. Critics have previously examined Wharton’s views on upper-class New York society and social climbers attempting to insert themselves into that society. What has not been studied as extensively in existing criticism is the way in which the exponential increases in the size of the reading public and the type of literature available at the time Wharton was publishing negatively impacted Wharton’s perception of the lower-class and nouveau riche readers and caused insecurities over her literary legacy. These insecurities influence her depictions of these classes within her writing specifically as they take part in the act of reading and decorating libraries. It is in the libraries owned and inhabited by Wharton’s characters where we can see what Wharton considers proper upper-class behavior and where she grants exceptions to her rules.
Adam Sonstegard, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Rachel Carnell, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Jennifer Jeffers, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
49 p.
Literature
Wharton; The Vice of Reading; The House of Mirth; The Custom of the Country; The Age of Innocence; Libraries; Readers

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Primisch, C. (2017). Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only [Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494190234165052

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Primisch, Christine. Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only. 2017. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494190234165052.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Primisch, Christine. "Wharton's Library: For Born Readers Only." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1494190234165052

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

csu1494190234165052
377
© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.