Touchstone, The

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. Edith Wharton's first novella, The Touchstone, opens with a temptation: a struggling young man named Stephen Glennard discovers that the intimate letters once written to him by a famous, now-dead novelist, a woman who had loved him devotedly, could be sold to a publisher for enough money to marry the woman he now hopes to wed. The decision he makes, and the slow corrosion of conscience that follows, anticipates the moral precision Wharton would bring to her great later novels of New York society. Published in 1900, The Touchstone introduced Wharton's signature themes: the quiet bargains people strike with their own honor, the social currencies of money and reputation, and the way the dead continue to shape the living. At under 30,000 words, it is one of her tightest examinations of these concerns - a chamber piece for two living characters haunted by a third who can no longer answer. This is the first release in Verbatim's Edith Wharton Audio Library, presenting the lesser-read works of one of America's foremost novelists in consistent, premium production. Future Wharton releases under the Verbatim imprint are narrated by the same voice, Eleanor Whitaker, creating a continuous listening experience across her catalog.