Edith Wharton 
Old Maid 

Classic Edith Wharton, ’The Old Maid’ was first published as a serial in ’The Red Book Magazine.’ Through this heart-rending and haunting tale, Wharton takes aim at the notions of conformity and delivers a scathing judgement on the conventions of life in the early 20th Century. In the story, the unmarried and prudish Charlotte Lovell gives up her baby daughter, Tina, to her married cousin, Delia. As time goes by and Tina grows, the two women must decide which of them is the ’real’ mother and whether Tina should ever know the truth of her past. A searing and melancholic story from the pen of one of America’s greatest novelists.-