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Article: "Lita is--jazz": the Harlem renaissance, cabaret culture, and racial amalgamation in Edith Wharton's Twilight Sleep.(Edith Wharton's "Twilight Sleep")
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- March 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Edith Wharton's 1927 novel Twilight Sleep has consistently suffered from a lack of critical scrutiny because, perhaps, when it is paired with better-known novels like The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, or The Custom of the Country, it appears rather anomalous-Madam Wharton, novelist of elite drawing rooms from New York to Paris, does the Jazz Age. Although Twilight Sleep is unique in Wharton's repertoire, particularly stylistically, it nonetheless deals with a set of concerns similar to her best-known works. Specifically, the novel examines the aftereffects of the invasion of old New York by newly-wealthy Westerners like Undine Spragg of The Custom of the Country ...