Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Touchstone
    The Touchstone
    The Touchstone
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    The Touchstone

    By Edith Wharton, Joseph Henry Patrick Brown and Thomas Brassey

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    This book contains Edith Wharton's first novella and the second book she ever wrote, 'The Touchstone'. This narrative follows Stephen Glennard, a young man whose destitution leads him into a dubious money-making scheme which he embarks on so that he can afford to marry the woman he loves. After seeing an advertisement seeking any papers or correspondences related to a recently deceased author that he had been in communication with, he snaps up the opportunity. A tale of how social strata, money, and self-deprecation can impact love, 'The Touchstone' is well worth a read and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Wharton's prolific work. This classic text has been chosen for its immense literary value, and we are proud to republish it here, complete with a new introductory biography of the author. Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRead Books Ltd.
    Release dateJul 7, 2014
    ISBN9781473395459
    Author

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married Boston socialite 'Teddy' Wharton but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. The couple travelled frequently to Europe and settled in France, where Wharton stayed until her death in 1937. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911) and The Reef (1912). She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with The Age of Innocence (1920) and she was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was also decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War.

    Read more from Edith Wharton

    Related to The Touchstone

    Related ebooks

    Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      California Dreaming

      Mar 31, 2020

      Rishi Reddi’s first novel, Passage West, is an audacious piece of work. On the one hand, the author situates her story in a California most of us won’t recognize: the Imperial Valley early in the previous century, when South Asians worked the irrigat

      2 min read

    • Article

      Talking to Fireflies

      May 1, 2020

      Talking to Fireflies
      5 min read

    • Article

      Writing Family History

      Dec 15, 2021

      Writing Family History
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dining With The Durrells

      Jun 17, 2019

      Dining With The Durrells
      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Too Much’: Featured Nonfiction from Rachel Vorona Cote

      Feb 25, 2020

      In Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today, Cote examines how the "unspoken rules" that govern the expression of women’s emotional and physical desires date back to the 19th century. The post ‘Too Much’: Featured Nonfiction from Ra

      6 min read

    • Article

      Clarence Page: The Age-old Trick Of ‘Passing’: Fiction Writer The Latest To Be Disgraced By Lies About Heritage

      Mar 20, 2023

      I have never known a man who faked his own death, but I have known a man who faked his own life, then sadly failed to live long enough for us to talk about it. I’m talking about the late Hache Carrillo, a rising, award-winning literary talent whose r

      3 min read

    • Article

      Favorite First Sentences

      Jan 1, 2021

      Favorite First Sentences
      1 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock

      Dec 9, 2020

      I’d gotten what I’d wanted—a room full of books and time enough to read them—but at a cost. The post A Year in Reading: Jesse Paddock appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Lady Hester Stanhope

      Nov 23, 2023

      Lady Hester Stanhope
      2 min read

    • Article

      She Dreamed of Dresses

      Feb 1, 2020

      She Dreamed of Dresses
      6 min read

    • Article

      5 over 50

      Oct 10, 2018

      5 over 50
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Fool Who Fished for a King

      Jul 1, 2020

      The Fool Who Fished for a King
      9 min read

    • Article

      Emily, Rewritten

      Jan 6, 2023

      The most mysterious member of the Brontë family, Emily Brontë died on 19 December 1848 at the young age of 30, leaving just one novel, Wuthering Heights, and a collection of poetry as her legacy. Yet, she is still recognised as one of the world’s gre

      3 min read

    • Article

      Whom He May Devour: Saving her planet would ban her from paradise.

      Jan 7, 2016

      Lydia watched Ahad play the guitar. He leaned against a boulder, eyes shut, his face positioned to catch the last warm rays of the setting sun. His long, slender fingers caressed the strings, producing a slow, haunting melody. The music almost made h

      17 min read

    • Article

      Katerina And The Bright Falcon

      Jan 1, 2021

      Katerina And The Bright Falcon
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Wandering Mind

      Jan 13, 2022

      A Wandering Mind
      5 min read

    • Article

      Joan Of Arc’s Doomed Campaign

      Jul 11, 2019

      Born as Jehanne d’Arc, nicknamed the “Maid of Orléans” and universally known as “Joan of Arc”, France’s national heroine was a medieval figure like no other. A crossdressing, teenage peasant girl who claimed to hear divine voices, Joan defied every s

      11 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Abu-Jaber, Shepherd, Ferrante, and More

      Mar 15, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Diana Abu-Jaber, Peng Shepherd, Elena Ferrante, and more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Abu-Jaber, Shepherd, Ferrante, and More appeared first on The

      4 min read

    • Article

      Sisters And Other Life Forms

      Jan 1, 2021

      Sisters And Other Life Forms
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Touchstone

    4/5

    7 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This was the 2nd book by Wharton (a novella) that I read after THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. As compared to that wonderful book, this one is set in a slightly less aristocratic world, although the sensibility remains snobbish and self-absorbed. The language is intellectual, complex and elegant. Emphasis falls on subtle shades of emotion and morality.

      “How could he continue to play his part, with this poison of indifference stealing through his veins? …What he wanted now was not immunity but castigation: his wife’s indignation might still reconcile him to himself. Her scorn was the moral antiseptic that he needed.”

      The book’s protagonist is debating whether or not to sell a collection of personal letters he received over a period of years from a woman (now deceased) who later became a renowned novelist. Formerly Miss Aubyn’s friend and confidant, the hero let his correspondence with her die out after realizing he would never love her as a woman. He acknowledged that she was his moral and mental superior but not a potential life partner.

      When the story begins, the hero is married and has a young child. He is keen to maintain them in the style to which they are accustomed, and he stands to obtain a considerable sum from the sale of the letters. The resulting moral struggle makes a far more engrossing tale than this attempt at retelling conveys. I recommend it to all Wharton fans and readers of historic American fiction.
    • 4/5
      In my quest to immerse myself in Wharton in 2013, I was lucky to choose to read her earliest novel first in my marathon of Wharton works. I can see some of the literary stretching and testing that later turns into to Wharton's brilliantly full-bodied characters and stories. I was surprised to learn in the Epilogue of the copy I own that the story became shockingly autobiographical, because Wharton's only lover saved and sold for petty profit the letters she wrote to him. A sorry character, he did give contemporary readers the gift of having the opportunity to peer into Wharton's private thoughts.
    • 4/5
      Upsetting reading about feeling guilty and bearing the cross on your shoulders and final atonement.
    • 5/5
      The Touchstone by Edith Wharton is not something I would have ever read had it not been for the Novella Challenge. The Novella Challenge is my favorite one so far because it has brought so many wonderful books to my attention. I never would have given novellas a second thought otherwise and would have missed out on all the terrific books I read for the challenge: Faulkner's "Old Man", Thomas Wolfe's "The Lost Boy," Marquez's "No One Writes to the Colonel". Edith Wharton's "The Touchstone" can hold it's own among these and probably any other novella one can find."The Touchstone" is about Stepehn Glennard, a man of marrying age who has been seeing a young woman whom he loves for two years. Unfortunately, Glennard does not have the money or the position to marry. The time is the second half of the 19th century, and Glennard is the sort of man who has to loiter around his club waiting for someone to invite him to dinner because he does not have the money to do the inviting himself. What he does have is a collection of letters from the famous Mrs. Aubyn, the greatest novelist of her generation. She was once in love with Glennard and wrote to him faithfully during their time together and after he broke off the relationship. Mrs. Aubyn did not have many close friends and never told anyone that Glennard was the love of her life, that he broke her heart or that she poured her heart out to him in a series of letters over a period of several years.Now, after Mrs. Aubyn's death, her reputation has grown and the stack of letters is worth quite a bit. Should Glennard publish them he could make well over 10,000 dollars, enough to invest, to gain a position and to marry the woman he loves. But to publish the letters is a base act, a betrayal that would label Glennard as a scoundrel should anyone find out. Publishing the letters would make it possible for him to marry but it would also make him unworthy of the woman he loves.This situation certainly caught my interest. I won't divulge any more of the story because I want to encourage readers to give "The Touchstone" a try. This is the only work of Ms. Wharton's that I've read, but I intend to rectify that situation shortly. The story is quite simple, but the novella is still a page turner. Events soon get out of Glennard's control which only makes the reader want to know what happens next with even greater urgency. Ms. Wharton can certainly tell a story. The issues may seem a bit foreign to 21st century readers--can anyone imagine somebody hesitating before publishing private letters worth a fortune after Linda Tripp's betrayal of Monica Lewinsky's trust? Well, maybe one can actually. I found that this archaic element only added to my interest in the story. "The Touchstone" offers an entertaining tale and the satisfaction of learning what life was like in it's time period, the same satisfaction many readers get from historical fiction.Possible Spoiler Alert: I have to say that I was disappointed a little with the ending. I won't give it away except to say that I felt it relied too heavily on the myth of the good woman. Glennard's wife is so morally upright that she is able to make him a better man through her example. I suspect this was just what Ms. Wharton's contemporary readership wanted in an ending, but it was a little hard for me to swallow. Other than that, I highly recommend "The Touchstone" by Edith Wharton. I'm giving it five out of five stars
    • 4/5
      One of Edith Wharton's shorter, earlier, and happier books, The Touchstone looks at the ways in which the choices we make can come back to haunt us. Glennard, the main character, must weigh his desires and logic against what he feels to be right and then live with the consequences of his actions. It is also about the relationship between a husband and wife and how it evolves throughout a marriage. There are some amazing lines that demonstrate what a depth of insight Wharton really had into our relations with each other, such as: "We live in our own souls as in an unmapped region, a few acres of which we have cleared for our habitation; while of the nature of those nearest to us we know but the boundaries that march with ours." I love Edith Wharton.

    Book preview

    The Touchstone - Edith Wharton

    I

    Professor Joslin, who, as our readers are doubtless aware, is engaged in writing the life of Mrs. Aubyn, asks us to state that he will be greatly indebted to any of the famous novelist’s friends who will furnish him with information concerning the period previous to her coming to England. Mrs. Aubyn had so few intimate friends, and consequently so few regular correspondents, that letters will be of special value. Professor Joslin’s address is 10 Augusta Gardens, Kensington, and he begs us to say that he will promptly return any documents entrusted to him.

    Glennard dropped the Spectator and sat looking into the fire. The club was filling up, but he still had to himself the small inner room, with its darkening outlook down the rain-streaked prospect of Fifth Avenue. It was all dull and dismal enough, yet a moment earlier his boredom had been perversely tinged by a sense of resentment at the thought that, as things were going, he might in time have to surrender even the despised privilege of boring himself within those particular four walls. It was not that he cared much for the club, but that the remote contingency of having to give it up stood to him, just then, perhaps by very reason of its insignificance and remoteness, for the symbol of his increasing abnegations; of that perpetual paring-off that was gradually reducing existence to the naked business of keeping himself alive. It was the futility of his multiplied shifts and privations that made them seem unworthy of a high attitude; the sense that, however rapidly he eliminated the superfluous, his cleared horizon was likely to offer no nearer view of the one prospect toward which he strained. To give up things in order to marry the woman one loves is easier than to give them up without being brought appreciably nearer to such a conclusion.

    Through the open door he saw young Hollingsworth rise with a yawn from the ineffectual solace of a brandy-and-soda and transport his purposeless person to the window. Glennard measured his course with a contemptuous eye. It was so like Hollingsworth to get up and look out of the window just as it was growing too dark to see anything! There was a man rich enough to do what he pleased—had he been capable of being pleased—yet barred from all conceivable achievement by his own impervious dulness; while, a few feet off, Glennard, who wanted only enough to keep a decent coat on his back and a roof over the head of the woman he loved, Glennard, who had sweated, toiled, denied himself for the scant measure of opportunity that his zeal would have converted into a kingdom—sat wretchedly calculating that, even when he had resigned from the club, and knocked off his cigars, and given up his Sundays out of town, he would still be no nearer attainment.

    The Spectator had slipped to his feet and as he picked it up his eye fell again on the paragraph addressed to the friends of Mrs. Aubyn. He had read it for the first time with a scarcely perceptible quickening of attention: her name had so long been public property that his eye passed it unseeingly, as the crowd in the street hurries without a glance by some familiar monument.

    Information concerning the period previous to her coming to England. . . . The words were an evocation. He saw her again as she had looked at their first meeting, the poor woman of genius with her long pale face and shortsighted eyes, softened a little by the grace of youth and inexperience, but so incapable even then of any hold upon the pulses. When she spoke, indeed, she was wonderful, more wonderful, perhaps, than when later, to Glennard’s fancy at least, the conscious of memorable things uttered seemed to take from even her most intimate speech the perfect bloom of privacy. It was in those earliest days, if ever, that he had come near loving her; though even then his sentiment had lived only in the intervals of its expression. Later, when to be loved by her had been a state to touch any man’s imagination, the physical reluctance had, inexplicably, so overborne the intellectual attraction, that the last years had been, to both of them, an agony of conflicting impulses. Even now, if, in turning over old papers, his hand lit on her letters, the touch filled him with inarticulate misery. . . .

    She had so few intimate friends . . . that letters will be of special value. So few intimate friends! For years she had had but one; one who in the last years had requited her wonderful pages, her tragic outpourings of love, humility, and pardon, with the scant phrases by which a man evades the vulgarest of sentimental importunities. He had been a brute in spite of himself, and sometimes, now that the remembrance of her face had faded, and only her voice and words remained with him, he chafed at his own inadequacy, his stupid inability to rise to the height of her passion. His egoism was not of a kind to mirror its complacency in the adventure. To have been loved by the most brilliant woman of her day, and to have been incapable of loving her, seemed to him, in looking back, the most derisive evidence of his limitations; and his remorseful tenderness for her memory was complicated with a sense of irritation against her for having given him once for all the measure of his emotional capacity. It was not often, however, that he thus probed the past. The public, in taking possession of Mrs. Aubyn, had eased his shoulders of their burden. There was something fatuous in an attitude of sentimental apology toward a memory already classic: to reproach one’s self for not having loved Margaret Aubyn was a good deal like being disturbed by an inability to admire the Venus of Milo. From her cold niche of fame she looked down ironically enough on his self-flagellations. . . . It was only when he came on something that belonged to her that he felt a sudden renewal of the old feeling, the strange dual impulse that drew him to her voice but drove him from her hand, so that even now, at sight of anything she had touched, his heart contracted painfully. It happened seldom nowadays. Her little presents, one by one, had disappeared from his rooms, and her letters, kept from some unacknowledged puerile vanity in the possession of such treasures, seldom came beneath his hand. . . .

    Her letters will be of special value— Her letters! Why, he must have hundreds of them—enough to fill a volume. Sometimes it used to seem to him that they came with every post—he used to avoid looking in his letter-box when he came home to his rooms—but her writing seemed to spring out at him as he put his key in the door—.

    He stood up and strolled into the other room. Hollingsworth, lounging away from the window, had joined himself to a languidly convivial group of men to whom, in phrases as halting as though they struggled to define an ultimate idea, he was expounding the cursed nuisance of living in a hole with such a damned climate that one had to get out of it by February, with the contingent difficulty of there being no place to take one’s yacht to in winter but that other played-out hole, the Riviera. From the outskirts of this group Glennard wandered to another, where a voice as different as possible from Hollingsworth’s colorless organ dominated another circle of languid listeners.

    Come and hear Dinslow talk about his patent: admission free, one of the men sang out in a tone of mock resignation.

    Dinslow turned to Glennard the confident pugnacity of his smile. Give it another six months and it’ll be talking about itself, he declared. It’s pretty nearly articulate now.

    Can it say papa? someone else inquired.

    Dinslow’s smile broadened. You’ll be deuced glad to say papa to IT a year from now, he retorted. "It’ll be able

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1