Unable to detach herself from Edith’s life, Anna must summon her strength to endeavor through this lonely new territory while Edith herself must face the consequences of her actions. Edith claims that she never loved her husband, and as Anna’s heart solicitously goes out to the kindly, simple Teddy Wharton a new chasm is marked in their friendship, illuminating the stark differences in their personalities. When Edith, struggling in her midlife, famously embarks on a tumultuous affair with the young journalist Morton Fullerton, the two women find their friendship precariously threatened by Anna’s disapproval. Anna, though, gives no thought to her own recognition she is interested only in lifting up her closest friend to the best of her ability. Living with the Whartons as a servant and yet held in a companionable station to both Edith and her husband, Teddy, Anna lives at the brink of two very different worlds, viewing Edith’s high society success from a position affording her no rank or attribution. In the first decade of the 1900s Edith Wharton’s name begins to rise amid the literary world as her novel The House of Mirth sees great success, thanks in part to the aid of her devoted secretary, her former governess and greatest friend, Anna Bahlmann.
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