Old New York

The four novellas that make up Old New York each take place in a different decade of the nineteenth century. “False Dawn (The ’Forties)” tells of young man, Lewis Raycie, sent to Italy by his father to purchase paintings, who ends up meeting John Ruskin and ends up buying paintings his father does not approve of. “The Old Maid (The ’Fifties)” examines two cousins, one of whom is secretly an unwed mother. “The Spark (The ’Sixties)” is about a man’s brief meeting with Walt Whitman. “She was bad…always,” begins “New Year’s Day (The ’Seventies)” and proceeds to tell how Mrs. Hazeldean got that reputation.

In many of the stories, characters from The Age of Innocence appear, making this a sequel of sorts. They also draw from Wharton’s own life to an unusual degree. Lewis Raycie sneaking out early in the morning and using oars and a bedquilt as a makeshift sail to visit his future wife is how Wharton’s father courted her mother. The house on West Twenty-Third Street in “New Year’s Day” is based on Wharton’s own childhood home on West Twenty-Third Street.

Published in May 1924