The Touchstone

In this piercing and elegant novella, Edith Wharton explores the corrosive price of betrayal and the possibility of moral redemption. Desperate for the money needed to marry the high-minded Alexa Trent, impoverished New York lawyer Stephen Glennard secretly sells the private, impassioned love letters written to him by a renowned deceased author. When the sensational book becomes a public scandal, his inner guilt threatens to destroy his marriage.