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2026 Edith Wharton Summit: Day 3

So, while this post, Day 3, is not technically related to the Summit event schedule, it does go in depth concerning a location very much associated with The Mount – the town of Lenox, Massachusetts. Participants of the Summit were provided with a printed, and digital, “Edith Wharton Walking Tour” of Lenox, and it is from this document that I was inspired to go on foot through the town on the final day of the the Summit. This will be a brief tour, covering only a handful of points of interest – so here we go!!

My starting point, once departing the Summit, was from my hotel, which was quite conveniently located in close proximity to the center of town. Called The Hideaway Inn (which, if ever you are in need of lodging in Lenox, I highly recommend!!), this beautifully restored Victorian establishment offered central access to town. Upon approach to the intersection of Old Stockbridge Road and Walker Street, to my right was the sprawling, red brick, 125-year-old Lenox Town Hall (built in 1901). Across from the Town Hall, on the northern side of Walker Streeet, was situated The Curtis Hotel, built in 1829. Teddy Wharton and his family often stayed here while summering in the Berkshires, and Edith’s governess and confidante, Anna Bahlmann, also stayed here while the Whartons were in Lenox. The wrap-around porch and stately brick structure lends an air of sophistication to the town, also very similar in build to the Town Hall.

While meandering throughout this intersection, one’s eye is drawn to the stone obelisk, named the Paterson-Egleston Monument. Dedicated in 1892, this structure stands in tribute to two prominent local families who were very much involved in the American Revolution and the early development of the town. What is perhaps more intriguing, however, is that this is the very intersection where 18-year-old Hazel Crosby died in the historic sledding accident of 1904. As many Wharton enthusiasts may already know, it was this incident that served as inspiration for Wharton’s 1911 novella Ethan Frome. A survivor of this accident, Kate Spencer, later befriended Wharton, and also worked as a librarian in the Lenox Library.

Mentioning the Lenox Library, it was this building that I next encountered on my walk deeper into town. Its unassuming exterior, while similar in design to the adjoining structures, does not betray any indication of the Wharton-rich materials that reside within. Upon entering and crossing the entrance vestibule, one is greeted by the front desk and helpful library staff. Wandering further, one can’t help but notice the original wood flooring and ornate white molding throughout. Traversing one reading room at a time, one also can’t help but recall in Edith Wharton’s Summer when Lucius Harney visits Charity Royall in the Hatchard Memorial Library, her place of employment, to assess the architectural integrity of the building, and where it could be extended, while also not failing to secure a brief moment of flirtation between one another.

Enshrined within a glass display class, in one of the reading rooms, one finally encounters the fascinating memorabilia related to Wharton and her relationship with the Lenox Library. One open tome reveals the Minutes of the Board of Managers for the Lenox Library Association, dated July 13, 1906; it is within this record that Edith Wharton (associate manager), and Mr. Grenville Winthrop, appoint a committee to have a new sign board made. Also on display are the Accession Records of the Lenox Library Association, 1905. Adjoining these records are also first-edition copies, gifted to the library, of Wharton’s The House of Mirth (1905), Madame de Treymes (1907), and The Buccaneers (1938).

As this post comes to a close, I can’t help but share the wonderful editions of Wharton’s (and James’) works I was able to purchase at The Mount’s marvelous gift and bookshop. The titles are displayed accordingly. As a personal note, my purchase of Wharton’s The Valley of Decision officially completed my collection of Wharton’s novels, all of which I now own one copy or edition!! Please make it a point to visit this fabulous shop on your next visit to The Mount!!

In final closing, please enjoy this group photo of the 2026 Edith Wharton Summit, professionally and artfully taken on Day 1; Photo: Eric Limon, courtesy of The Mount, Edith Wharton Cultural Center (Lenox, MA)

Thanks to everyone who has stopped by my blog for a look around, and a special thank you to Dr. Donna Campbell for sharing links to my posts on the Edith Wharton Society website. Please, by all means, consider subscribing to my blog, or commenting, and ask me anything further you’d like to know about this wonderful event. You can also email me at: jtamburello194@gmail.com. As always, please ask permission or give credit before reproducing any photos, and again, thank you for visiting!!

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Summer in Winter

On this official last day of winter, with balmier seasons ahead, I thought it appropriate to revisit Wharton’s oft-neglected novella to postulate something that may or may not have had an effect on her characters, plot, and ending: what would Summer have been like had Wharton set the story in winter, like her Ethan Frome??

The novella begins as thus:

“It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of the street when it passes through North Dormer. The place lies high and in the open, and lacks the lavish shade of the more protected New England villages. The clump of weeping-willows about the duck pond, and the Norway spruces in front of the Hatchard gate, cast almost the only roadside shadow between lawyer Royall’s house and the point where, at the other end of the village, the road rises above the church and skirts the black hemlock wall enclosing the cemetery.”

It is easy to observe the contrast here. Wharton would have you believe that the setting is nothing but warm, pleasant, and bucolic, this put in stark relief against her Ethan Frome, which is an icy tale full of woe and misery. The reader is led towards a positive outlook, perhaps to think that all that is to follow will have a satisfying outcome, a stereotypical “happy ending.” After all, who doesn’t like the weather in June?? And how could any of Wharton’s characters be unhappy in such a dreamy place??

Put under a microscope, however, we are led to something quite different. As readers of Summer, we know that the ending is not ideal, and that her characters, at least her main character, Charity, do not end up particularly happy or satisfied. Charity, like Ethan, is looking for an escape, a chance to break free from her confines, because, to her, this summer landscape is stifling and restrictive. Our minds thereby travel to what the extreme of summer looks, and feels, like at its harshest. The heat and humidity is indeed stifling, and most people do not venture outdoors. The same is true for the winter, in which the drifts of snow and icy temperatures keep most people home bound. So, we can deduce that the extremes of each season leads certain characters, whether in fiction or in real life, to a sort of “cabin fever” effect, where the effects of atmosphere, temperature, and precipitation are prone to driving people to their limits.

And it is this propulsion to the limit that we see affect both Charity and Ethan. It does not matter the season. The extremes of each is what hurtles each character to their individual, but identical fates. Would Charity have indeed escaped North Dormer had Wharton set the story in the winter?? Would Charity have been more resourceful, or more inspired to break free had the winter had its grip on North Dormer?? And inversely, would Ethan have had better luck escaping Starkfield had Wharton set his story in the summer?? It behooves the reader to conclude that, no, it does not matter for Charity or Ethan whether it is summer or winter. We see the glimpses into their identical fates, which ultimately lead to their spiritual destruction. It is evident and foreshadowed in the passage quoted above, where the road ends, just as Charity and Ethan’s stories end, in a place of death, the cemetery.

Readers ultimately mourn for and empathize with Charity and Ethan. But it is at Wharton’s hand that we see their fates played out in the harshest ways. Wharton, in her time, had to bring her characters to such extremes to light attention to the plight of rural men and women of her era. For such people, there were few opportunities for escape or improvement. What we normally observe as the change of seasons in the most delightful of ways were mechanisms of torture for her characters. And perhaps once that warm summer sun pokes over the horizon, or the first snow of winter blows our direction, we’ll remember them more profoundly.

***Stay tuned for more posts!! This June, I will be attending the Edith Wharton Summit 2026 in Lenox, Massachusetts!! So, I look forward to having a plethora of material for future content. Enjoy, and Happy Spring!!

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