From the Archives: Equity of Expression, Disability, and Ecoliteracy in the Limited Editions of Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome

Abstract

This article examines the limited editions of Ethan Frome and their significance in situating the novel’s role in the American literary tradition. The aesthetically elaborate editions along with the editorial, epistolary, and extratextual discussions they accrued document the relationship among the cultural forces of production that shape the readers’ perception of a masterpiece. At the heart of this archival study is the discussion of explicit strategies that the author, editors, illustrators, and readers used to explain, justify, and endorse the multiple reintroductions of Ethan Frome. Equally important in this article is the assessment of the outcomes that the various iterations of the novel produced both in building the author’s reputation and in amplifying the text’s enduring value, aesthetic versatility, and thematic elasticity. This is also a study of the unique and multiple ways in which the visual rhetoric of the limited editions underscores and amplifies the ecocritical and disability studies-oriented perspectives embedded into Wharton’s narrative.