Edith Wharton - “A Lady Doesn’t Write” - A BBC2 ‘Bookmark’ Documentary narrated by Ian Holm

‘No one before her had ever described and portrayed the position of women in American society’

For many of her best known works, the celebrated American novelist Edith Wharton [1862-1937] drew her inspiration from the New York aristocracy that defined America in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Her own personal life was complex, constrained by conventions, contradictions and ignorance, and served as an essential source for some of her finest writing. Edith Wharton published her first novel at the age of forty, and would become the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature with ‘The Age of Innocence’.

Wharton was confidante to many noted intellectuals of her time, including Henry James, Jean Cocteau, and Andre Gide, and counted Theodore Roosevelt and Kenneth Clark among her friends. She spoke fluent French, Italian and German and most of her work were first published in English and French.

With readings from; The Fullness of Life, The Buccaneers, The Line of Least Resistance, A Backward Glance, The Dilettante, Expiation, The Greater Inclination, The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, The Reckoning, and The Fullness of Life,

Dramatised extracts from “The Buccaneers” - A BBC /WGBH Boston co-production.


Readings by Irene Worth
Additional Readings: Liza Ross, Paul Birchard
Commentary: Ian Holm

Contributors:
Professor RWB Lewis: Biographer
Louis Auchincloss: Writer and Biographer
Michael Pye: Writer
Marilyn French: Writer
Valerie Steele: Fashion Historian
Charles Scribner III: Publisher
Lily Lodge: Etiquette Consultant
Stephanie Copeland: Restoration Director, The Mount
Professor Candace Waid: Yale University

Photography: Nigel Walters
Sound: David Jewitt, Alan Line, Paul Wilson
Rostrum Camera: Ken Morse, Ivor Richardson
Graphics: Mina Martinez
Film Production Consultant: Warwick Gee
Unit Managers: Erica Banks, Nick Hawkins
Production Assistant: Carol Akillian
Film Editor: Jan Leman
Director: Tim Neil
Producer: Ann Hummel
Series Editor: Roland Keating

First shown as part of the BBC 2 Bookmark strand in 1995.

Filmed on 16mm Eastmancolour. Stereo.

Salvaged from VHS many years later!


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