EDITH WHARTON ABROAD: SELECTED TRAVEL WRITINGS

EDITH WHARTON ABROAD: SELECTED TRAVEL WRITINGS, 1888-1920 Edited by Sarah Bird Wright (St. Martin's, $22.95) With recent film productions of two of her novels, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, and a third one on television (PBS' The Buccaneers), Edith Wharton currently enjoys a certain limelight at the forefront of American culture. Her novels of turn-of-the-century manners are structured with an elegance and understatement that she brought to her travel writing as well. Excerpts from seven pieces, collected here for the first time, span three decades and various methods of travel, including steam yacht, railway, and motorcar. Whether she is exploring the Swiss mountains, the Italian monasteries, the exotic markets of Morocco, or the front lines of WWI Europe, Wharton's eye for detail serves her well. She anoints these passages with the same gracefulness with which she approaches her novels -- all that seems to be missing is the dialogue. B+