My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann. Questo articolo non è disponibile.My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann

<div><p><b>A rich trove of letters from Edith Wharton to her governess, written over the course of their long and affectionate friendship</b><br><br> An exciting archive came to auction in 2009: the papers and personal effects of Anna Catherine Bahlmann (1849&#8211;1916), a governess and companion to several prominent American families. Among the collection were&#160;one hundred thirty-five&#160;letters from her most famous pupil, Edith Newbold Jones, later the great American novelist Edith Wharton. Remarkably, until now, just three letters from Wharton&#8217;s childhood and early adulthood were thought to survive. Bahlmann, who would become Wharton&#8217;s literary secretary and confidante, emerges in the letters as a seminal influence, closely guiding her precocious young student&#8217;s readings, translations, and personal writing. Taken together, these letters, written over the course of forty-two years, provide a deeply affecting portrait of mutual loyalty and influence between two women from different social classes.</p><p>This correspondence reveals Wharton&#8217;s maturing sensibility and vocation, and includes details of her life that will challenge long-held assumptions about her formative years. Wharton scholar Irene Goldman-Price provides a rich introduction to <i>My Dear Governess</i> that restores Bahlmann to her central&#160;place in Wharton&#8217;s life.</p></div>

<p><b>Irene Goldman-Price</b> has taught literature and women's studies at Ball State University and Penn State University. She serves on the editorial board of the <i>Edith Wharton Review</i> and has consulted and taught at The Mount, Edith Wharton's house museum in Massachusetts. In 2010&#8211;2011 she was a visiting fellow at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, where the Wharton letters are held.</p>