DIANNE L. CHAMBERS is Professor of English at Elmhurst College, USA.

Introduction Wharton and Feminist Criticism Wharton, Women, and Authorship at the Turn of the Century Competing Discourses and the Word in The House of Mirth The Unraveling of Story in The Reef Seduction and Language in Summer Gender and Performance in The Glimpses of the Moon Conclusion

This close and innovative study of Edith Wharton's major novels reveals the use of increasingly complex narrative techniques to counter the multiple forces working against women writers at the beginning of the twentieth century.