The Touchstone

Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money. So when he becomes aware of the potential value of a series of passionate love letters written to him by the recently deceased author Margaret Aubyn, he sells them and marries the beautiful Alexa Trent.However, his shame and guilt at building a new life on the betrayal of another’s love slowly begins to eat away at him, and Margaret’s memory has a power that can reach him from beyond the grave. The first of Edith Wharton’s works depicting life in “old New York”, The Touchstone is an acutely observed novella , and an exploration of the tension between self-serving opportunism and the desire to live a moral life.