The Children by Edith Wharton (1928)

In 1925, in his novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy--they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money...." This 1928 novel by Edith Wharton can be easily imagined as the story of the children of just such careless people.

The seven children of the title "belong" to Cliffe and Joyce Wheater, two wealthy Americans who flit around Europe, living in the best hotels and leaving their young charges at less fashionable hotels in the care of a governess and nannies. Four of the children are theirs together, three from their first marriage and one from their later remarriage. One is the child of Cliffe and his second wife (before his remarriage to Joyce). Two are the children of Joyce's second husband and a deceased circus performer, who have been left in Joyce's care following their divorce before her remarriage to Cliffe. (Some families do get complicated, don't they?)

The eldest of this motley group is 15-year-old Judith, who has become a mother figure for the rest. Without the benefit of present and stable parents, the seven have vowed to stay together, no matter what the future liaisons of the Wheaters might be. The story begins when they are befriended on board a ship by Martin Boyne, a bachelor in his forties who is on his way to meet a woman whom he has long silently loved. As he learns of their history, he finds himself moved by pity and outrage for their plight and increasingly drawn to Judith in a disturbing way, considering her age. He agrees to help the children stay together to the best of his ability.

As in all the other Wharton novels I have read, the tension is created by the contrast between the constraint of following the rules and doing the proper thing and the freedom of following the passions of the heart. Be warned--this contest includes only bittersweet endings.

This is a most remarkable book, and I can't imagine why I never heard of it before. The writing is elegant and the characterization is wonderful. I don't understand why Edith Wharton is not more lauded. She shares many of the same plot situations and themes with Henry James, but he seems to be much more highly regarded. Wharton is so much better, in my opinion.

I highly recommend this novel. It will break your heart. If nothing else, it will make you think about how the children might feel in families that combine theirs and his and hers, with parents too busy to look after their own.