Author(s): Edith Wharton

Travel Literature

Shedding the constraints that existed for women in turn-of-the-century America, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented "motor-car" to explore the cities and countryside of France. Originally published in 1908, "A Motor-Flight Through France" is considered by many to be the very best of Wharton's outstanding travel writings. While Wharton's novels are darkly funny and deliciously catty, and her short stories are populated by adulterers, murderers, and artists, "A Motor-Flight Through France" captures all of the riches and charm of France during the Belle Epoque in gorgeous, romantic prose. Like many Americans, Wharton was utterly beguiled by France at the dawn of the twentieth century, and, in this volume, her brilliant sketches of "l'Hexagone" provide an enchanting and indelible portrait of the land during this era. But Wharton's travelogue is as much about the thrill of travel as it is about place. With the automobile in its infancy, Wharton traversed the countryside as few people ever had, liberated from the ugliness of train yards and the constraints of passage by rail. "The motor-car has restored the romance of travel," she wrote, and readers of this wonderful book will be grateful to experience it through her eyes.