The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton

A lonely traveler drawn to a remote Breton estate discovers that Kerfol's crumbling beauty conceals a history of grief, violence, and uncanny silence. Ruined wings, a chapel, a moat, and watchful avenues create an atmosphere so oppressive that even the estate's pack of dogs seems subdued, as if the house has drained life from everything within its walls. When he learns the local legend of ghost dogs appearing on one day each year, a trial record opens the door to the tragedy behind the haunting. The past reveals the stern lord Yves de Cornault, his young wife Anne de Barrigan, and a marriage shaped by rank, isolation, and uneasy tenderness. Anne's loneliness, her cherished little dog, and her secret meeting with Hervé de Lanrivain lead to a murder on the stairs, a coerced confession, and a courtroom world where rumor can outweigh truth. In a separate but equally disturbing tale, failed playwright Hubert Granice, desperate to prove his sanity, recounts a meticulously planned poisoning and confronts the possibility that his guilt, like Kerfol's sorrow, may never be fully believed. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.