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Saturday Drama: Stephen Wakelam - The Jinx Element

The Jinx Element

21/01/2012

Stephen Wakelam - The Jinx Element

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Drama, Stephen Wakelam - The Jinx Element

An encounter with a journalist causes shockwaves in Edith Wharton's life.

4 Extra Debut. Edith Wharton's life had as much drama as her novels. An encounter with a journalist caused shockwaves. Stars Fenella Woolgar.

by Stephen Wakelam

Edith Wharton's private life was as dramatic as many of her novels. An encounter with a journalist was to have a seismic effect on her marriage and her work.

Directed by Sally Avens

Pullitzer prize winning author Edith Wharton had a long career, which stretched over forty years and included the publication of more than forty books, many of which have been made into films including 'The House of Mirth'. A born storyteller her novels are justly celebrated for their vivid settings, satiric wit, ironic style, and moral seriousness. Her characters are often trapped in bad relationships or confining circumstances. Her own life stands as an example of the obstacles that a woman of her time and place had to overcome to find self-realization. Stephen Wakelam's play tells the story of Edith's affair with the journalist Morton Fullerton through the eyes of her friend and fellow writer Henry James. Age 47 Edith embarked upon a relationship which made her reassess her own marriage to Teddy Wharton, a platonic relationship that did not allow her to share her intellectual and artistic interests. 

Stephen Wakelam has written many successful radio plays including 'Adulteries of a Provinical Wife' about Flaubert writing Madame Bovary and 'What I Think of My Husband' about Thomas Hardy.

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