Introduction : a critical history / Millicent Bell -- The social subject in The age of innocence / Pamela Knights -- Edith Wharton and the science of manners / Nancy Bentley -- Edith Wharton and race / Elizabeth Ammons -- The custom of the country : Spragg and the art of the deal / Elaine Showalter -- The female conscience in Wharton's shorter fiction / Gloria C. Erlich -- Law, language, and ritual in Summer / Rhonda Skillern -- The house of mirth : the bachelor and the baby / Maureen Howard -- The fruit of the tree : Justine and the perils of abstract idealism / James W. Tuttleton -- The valley of decision : Edith Wharton's Italian mask / William L. Vance -- Edith Wharton's Valley of decision : a rediscovered contemporary critique / Vernon Lee.