Roman Fever by Edith Wharton - A LitSalon Short
Event Details
“I’m posting this LitSalon Short as a ‘taster’ for anyone considering joining me for the six-meeting study of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, starting 21 October 2026, 6.30–8.30 pm (UK time). Participants will also get a feel for my facilitation style.”
Nancy Goldstein
In this LitSalon Short we’ll be discussing Roman Fever (1934), one of Wharton’s most perfectly constructed stories — and, at eight pages, one of the most efficient. Two wealthy American widows, old friends and old rivals, sit on a Roman terrace watching their daughters. Over the course of an afternoon conversation, a buried secret surfaces. The ending is one of the great last lines in the American short story.
Wharton understood, as only an insider could, that in a world where women’s power is almost entirely social, silence is not passivity. It is strategy.
As for The Age of Innocence. Published in 1920 — the same year American women won the right to vote — it is set in a world Wharton knew from the inside: Old New York society, a closed world of inherited money and rigid ritual revolving around the unspoken rule that nothing shall ever, under any circumstances, be said plainly. What cannot be acknowledged cannot threaten. What cannot be named cannot exist. She knew that the real cost of a society built on appearances isn’t borne by the people who break the rules. It’s borne by the people who keep them.
Our six-meeting study of The Age of Innocence begins on Wednesday 21 October 2026.
JOINING DETAILS:
- Single session LitSalon Short on Edith Wharton’s Roman Fever, led by Dr Nancy Goldstein. The story is available free online via the linked text above.
- Wednesday 23 September, 5.00–6.30 pm (UK time), live on Zoom
- ‘LitSalon Shorts’ are single-session studies (usually slightly shorter than a typical Salon study meeting) in which a facilitator shares with the wider Salon community their enthusiasm for an aspect of literature or culture.
- Shorts are offered free of charge, but numbers are limited so please use the booking form below to reserve a place. Although there is no fee for this Short, Nancy asks you to consider making a donation — perhaps the price of your last G&T or flat white? — to José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, which feeds hungry people in war and emergency zones all over the world, from Gaza and Ukraine to Pakistan and areas struggling with natural disasters.
