Emma Wolf's Short Stories in The Smart Set (AMS Studies in Modern Literature)

Edited and with an introduction by Barbara Cantalupo, Emma Wolf's Short Stories in The Smart Set gathers together the ten stories that Jewish-American author Emma Wolf (1865-1932) published in The Smart A Magazine of Cleverness . Wolf was already a well-published novelist by the time she began contributing to Smart Set in 1902. Not conforming to the commonly held paradigm that early twentieth-century Jewish-American women authors wrote about poverty, politics, and class struggle, Wolf's writing, like James's and Wharton's, addresses the intimate concerns of the upper-middle class, as this collection reveals. Wolf's characters, all products of the Gilded Age, engaged social complexities familiar to Smart Set the impact of easier divorce, new roles for the "New Woman," and the politics of big money."Eschewing the glib topicality that permeates the Smart Set, [Wolf] pushes to disclose the fraught complexities modernity has delivered to those blessed with what feel like options. The democratization of leisure and opportunity has made their struggles more akin to contemporary ones, and Cantalupo's insightful editing and contextualization of Wolf's forgotten stories is a timely and illuminating gift for readers and scholars alike."-Edward S. Cutler, A Journal of American Women Writers"In a magical act of literary resurrection, Barbara Cantalupo has restored to life Emma Wolf's long-buried short stories in The Smart Set -the New Yorker of its time. Wolf contributed a distinctive voice-at once, western, Jewish, female and unabashed-to early twentieth century American literature. How wonderful to have these stories back in print!"-Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American A History"In this new collection of forgotten stories by Emma Wolf, Barbara Cantalupo has added a fascinating chapter to American literature at the turn of the century and has added immeasurably to our understanding of the New Woman charting her own territory beyond the barriers of the Gilded Age. Cantalupo's incisive introduction carves out a unique place for Wolf in the literary world dominated by Wharton and James."-Ann Shapiro, editor of Jewish American Women Writers (1994)