Edith Wharton, Instagram Influencers, and Late Capitalism: Adapting The Glimpses of the Moon for the Twenty-First Century

Abstract This article examines Wharton’s 1922 novel The Glimpses of the Moon alongside the 2024 Audible adaptation Glimpses of the Moon, by Sam Freilich and Tavi Gevinson. Gevinson has emphasized how “modern” she and Freilich found Wharton’s novel, and in this respect, their reading of The Glimpses of the Moon differs from its contemporaneous reception, when critics dismissed an aging Wharton as out of touch and unsuited to observing the social fabric of the 1920s. Since then, Wharton scholars from Dale Bauer to Donna Campbell have been divided on the novel’s artistic value. But in the long century that has passed since Wharton’s Glimpses was first published, many of these critiques have faded, and what remains in Freilich and Gevinson’s audio adaptation is a strikingly familiar portrait of the pressures economic forces and social transactions have on negotiations of personal values and happiness. This article shows how Freilich and Gevinson’s adaptation of The Glimpses of the Moon’s content and form can illuminate elements of modernism/modernity present in Wharton’s original novel and ultimately illustrate the continued relevance of Wharton’s themes within a society that remains embedded in consumerism, status, and performance.