EDITING THE NOVEL

The Drawing Room and the Library

The manuscript passages on this page reveal Wharton’s attention to spaces in her editing process. On page 442 below, Newland, his mother, and his sister entertain a guest, Sillerton Jackson, for dinner. After dinner, in accordance with custom, the women and men separate: Mrs. Archer and Janey go to the drawing room, where they sew a wedding gift for Newland’s fiancée, May, under the bright light of a mechanical oil lamp. Meanwhile, Newland and Sillerton retreat to the library to smoke.

In the last paragraph of the page above, Wharton writes, “The ladies, on this conclusion, gathered up their trains to seek the Carcel globes of the drawing-room while Archer and Mr. Sillerton Jackson withdrew to the Gothic library.” The edits to this passage show Wharton working through the description of the physical movement of the characters. She crosses out “to mount to the Carcel globes” and corrects “to seek the Carcel globes.”

As shown by the plan of a city home below, the dining room and the drawing room could be located on the same floor, suggesting that women’s movement to the latter space after dinner would not always require moving upstairs.

First Floor Plan for Oliver James, Esq. Residence

In the passage below, Wharton describes Newland’s feeling of constraint following his marriage to May. Again, she provides insight into the distinction between the drawing room and the library, this time in terms of window curtains. Newland finds relief in the fact that the library curtains can move back and forth on a rod, allowing him a sense of freedom through the connection to the outside world. In the drawing room, by contrast, Wharton describes in the second pargraph that the curtains are “immovably looped up over layers of inner lace” and exacerbate his feeling of being trapped. The manuscript page also shows Wharton considering how to best describe the fixedness of the drawing room curtains. She experiments with the word “festooned” and the placement of the word “inner” before settling on the final phrasing.

In The Hatch Family by Eastman Johnson, the curtains contain the sort of heaviness and immobility that Wharton describes.

The Hatch Family, 1870-71