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Article: "Not Precisely War Stories": Edith Wharton's short fiction from the great war.
- Article from:
- Studies in American Fiction
- Article date:
- September 22, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Northeastern University. 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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On June 28, 1915, Edith Wharton wrote to her publisher Charles Scribner regarding both her experiences in wartime France and her plans for writing in the near future. "I have been given such unexpected opportunities for seeing things at the front," she reported, "that you might perhaps care to collect the articles (I suppose there will be five) in a small volume to be published in the autumn" - the volume that was to become Fighting France. She added,
Some months ago I told you that you could count on the completion of my novel by the spring of 1916 [the never-completed novel Literature]; but I thought then that the war would be over by August. Now we are looking ...