My Dear Governess

The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann

Goldman-Price Irene

An exciting archive came to auction in 2009: the papers and personal effects of Anna Catherine Bahlmann (1849-1916), a governess and companion to several prominent American families. Among the collection were one hundred thirty-five letters from her most famous pupil, Edith Newbold Jones, later the great American novelist Edith Wharton. Remarkably, until now, just three letters from Wharton's childhood and early adulthood were thought to survive. Bahlmann, who would become Wharton's literary secretary and confidant, emerges in the letters as a seminal influence, closely guiding her precocious young student's readings, translations, and personal writing. Taken together, these letters, written over the course of forty-two-years, provide a deeply affecting portrait of mutual loyalty and influence between two women from different social classes. This correspondence reveals Wharton's maturing sensibility and vocation, and includes details of her life that will challenge long-held assumptions about her formative years. Wharton scholar Irene Goldman-Price provides a rich introduction to My Dear Governess that restores Bahlmann to her central place in Wharton's life.

About the Author

Irene Goldman-Price has taught literature and women's studies at Ball State University and Penn State University. She serves on the editorial board of the Edith Wharton Review and has consulted and taught at The Mount, Edith Wharton's house museum in Massachusetts.

Reviews

"Making these previously unknown letters available would in itself be a valuable service, but Goldman-Price has gone far beyond that in her general introduction, introductions to each letter, and notes. The letters in this book will change the way in which we read Wharton's early life and intellectual development" – Donna Campbell, Washington State University

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