In his Introduction, Louis Auchincloss calls the writing in A Backward Glance "as firm and crisp and lucid as in the best of her novels".Written in 1934, three years before her death, A Backward Glance is a vivid account of Wharton's public and private life. With richness and delicacy, Wharton describes the sophisticated New York society she grew up in, chronicles her travels in France, Italy, and North Africa, and re-creates the expatriate community she helped establish in Paris during the 1920s and '30s. In delightful portraits of her circle of friends, she offers candid and memorable profiles of Henry James, Bernard Berenson, Logan Pearsall Smith, Isadora Duncan, and many other leading cultural figures of her time.