A review by ricefun
A Backward Glance: An Autobiography by Edith Wharton

5.0

In Wharton's autobiography she reveals herself to be a woman of letters, stories, books and relationships. She makes no pretext about saying that the great love of her life is her writing and traveling. While her romantic and married life remains in the shadows, only to be revealed later by scholars and sensationalists, her literary life takes center stage of this work. Her resources and connections shape her experience, but also hamper her passion, as women of New York society are not meant to write. The memories of her childhood, travel, and friendships are her most treasured 'resources' and she encourages her readers to build their own trove of memories. The entire work is tinged with melancholy as her life draws nearer its end and she watches the lives of her friends pass away one by one.