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The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann
Yale University Press
June 2012
On Sale: June 5, 2012
336 pages
ISBN: 0300169892
EAN: 9780300169898
Kindle: B0083SO4B2
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction Biography
An exciting archive came to auction in 2009: the papers and personal effects of Anna Catherine Bahlmann (1849β1916), a governess and companion to several prominent American families. Among the collection were one hundred thirty-five letters from her most famous pupil, Edith Newbold Jones, later the great American novelist Edith Wharton. Remarkably, until now, just three letters from Whartonβs childhood and early adulthood were thought to survive. Bahlmann, who would become Whartonβs literary secretary and confidante, emerges in the letters as a seminal influence, closely guiding her precocious young studentβs 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. This correspondence reveals Whartonβs 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 My Dear Governess that restores Bahlmann to her central place in Whartonβs life.
 Media BuzzAll Things Considered - August 10, 2012
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