Ocean State Libraries

The mystery of how a wealthy New York socialite became a major American novelist is brilliantly explored in this fascinating critical biography, widely considered to be the most perceptive introduction to Edith Wharton's life and work. This new edition includes two chapters: one on Lily Bart and the lethal stereotypes of women on the nineteenth-century stage, and another on the way Wharton's own sensual awakening led from the frozen austerity of Ethan...

A biography of the New England poet describing her childhood, schooling, family relationships, and presenting an interpretative study of her work.

A brilliant portrait of a beloved and controversial figure in twentieth-century spirituality. Simone Weil (1906-1943) was a writer and philosopher who devoted her life to a search for God-while avoiding membership in organized religion. She wrote with the clarity of a brilliant mind educated in the best French schools, the social conscience of a grass-roots labor organizer, and the certainty and humility of a mystic-and she persistently carried out...