The title story takes place in medieval Italy and tells of a hermit whose life is disrupted by a woman who has fled a convent. The Wild Woman is described as having “little aptitude for the life apart” (i.e. a monastic life). Wharton also named the diary of her affair with Morton Fullerton, which had begun in 1908, “The Life Apart.”
The other stories occur in contemporary America, albeit a partly imagined America. “The Best Man,” a tale of politics and corruption, features the newly reelected governor of Midsylvania. “The Pretext,” which takes place in Wentworth and its famous university, satirizes a thinly veiled Harvard University.
Published in October 1908