The Descent of Man and Other Stories

Originally published in 1903, The Descent of Man and Other Stories is an early collection of short fiction that isn't held together by any particular theme. Of all the stories perhaps the most interesting for technical reasons is The Lady's Maid's Bell, a ghost story that incorporates a distinctly unreliable narrator in Alice Hartley, amidst the necessary gothic attributes of an old house, a secret past and the ghost itself which provides the linkages to create the resolution. By using an unreliable narrator, Wharton is able to retain a sense of ambiguity about the proceedings thus leaving the reader to interpret the plot in different ways. There is also an autobiographical element in so far as Alice Hartley is recovering from a diseased state and this is used partly to create the notion on unreliability but also to justify the increased sensitivity to the ghostly presence.