Following the highly successful panels at ALA 2025, the Edith Wharton Review is planning a special issue on Edith Wharton and Popular Culture.
Edith Wharton’s appeal has long stretched beyond the academy and across demographics, but perhaps never more so than in the twenty-first century. One of only a few early twentieth-century American women novelists whose work has never been out of print, Wharton is regularly the question or answer on Jeopardy! these days. She’s also the heroine of a 2024 murder mystery by Mariah Fredericks. The indie band The Magnetic Fields penned a love-letter to the “masterpiece of catastrophic love” that is Wharton’s 1911 Ethan Frome. A diverse range of voices cite Wharton as an influence or a favorite: Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Beth Nguyen, and Francis Ford Coppola—whose adaptation of The Glimpses of the Moon is currently underway. Tavi Gevinson’s 2024 audio series is also inspired by the novel.
From Juliet Sharp reading The House of Mirth on the original CW network’s Gossip Girl in the aughts to Julian Fellowes naming the best dressed couple on HBO’s The Gilded Age after George and Bertha Dorset from the same novel, Edith Wharton is enjoying a renaissance across 21st-century popular culture even more pronounced than her 1990s revival. This special issue aims to address popular culture’s engagement with Wharton’s capacious body of work.
Scholarly submissions might theorize
or make a case for the influence of Wharton on popular works not explicitly connected to her oeuvre.
Submissions from individuals at all levels of their careers are welcome. Due date for completed essays is September 10, 2025
Please direct queries to the editor, Rita Bode: rbode@trentu.ca.
Further information on the EWR can be found here.
Submissions of (approximately 20-30 pages; 6000-10000 words) should follow the latest edition of the MLA Style Manual and can be uploaded to the editorial website.
Individuals wishing to submit shorter pieces to the “Notes on…” section should first query the editor.
