Introduction and Notes by Janet Beer, Manchester Metropolitan University. The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, aged 29, beautiful, impoverished and in need of a rich husband to safeguard h
With an Introduction by Dr Pamela Knights, Department of English Studies, Durham University. With this intensely moving short novel, Edith Wharton set out `to draw life as it really was' in the lonely
The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, aged 29, beautiful, impoverished and in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite, and to support her expensive habits - her cl
‘He looked at her hair and longed to touch it again, and to tell her that it smelt of the woods; but he had never learned to say such things…’ One harsh winter in 1900s New England, Ethan Frome toils
′I want - I want somehow to get away with you into a world where words like that - categories like that - won′t exist. Where we shall be simply two human beings who love each other, who are the whole
Well-rounded introduction features the complete text of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, The Age of Innocence, plus Ethan Frome, excerpts from The Decoration of Houses, four short stories, and severa
The Age of Innocence centers on an upper-class couple's impending marriage, and the introduction of a woman plagued by scandal whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the
Beautiful New York socialite Lily Bart finds herself alone and nearly penniless as her thirtieth birthday approaches. To maintain her station in high society, Lily must wait for her miserly aunt to be
A free-spirited young American attempts to extricate herself from a failed marriage to an aristocratic Frenchman in Edith Wharton's entertaining novella. "Madame de Treymes," written in 1907, offers a
In the dead gray cold of Starkfield, Massachusetts, farmer Ethan Frome is struggling to scrape out a living. His duties are to his wife, Zeena—an ungrateful, soul-sick hypochondriac as frigid as
Edith Wharton journeyed to Morocco in the final days of the First World War, at a time when there was no guidebook to the country.[i]In Morocco[/i] is the classic account of her expedition. A seemingl
Edith Wharton's novella Ethan Frome (1911) is a classic of American literature. A young girl, Mattie Silver is hired to keep house on the bleak New England farm belonging to Ethan Frome and his sickly
Considered by some to be her finest work, Edith Wharton’s Summer created a sensation when first published in 1917, as it was one of the first novels to deal honestly with a young woman’s sexual awaken
A story of forbidden sexual passion and thwarted dreams set against the backdrop of a lush summer in rural MassachusettsSeventeen-year-old Charity Royall is desperate to escape life with her hard-drin
Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money. So when he becomes aware of the potential value of a series of passionate love letters written to him by the recently deceased author Margaret Aubyn, he
The intelligent and charming Newland Archer – a member of one of New York's most prominent families – is living the life that has always been expected of him: he is a successful lawyer engaged to the
Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young, attractive, but impoverished New Yorkers. They are in love and decide to marry, but realise their chances of happiness are slim without the wealth and society t
It’s the perfect match—gentleman lawyer Newland Archer will marry young socialite May Welland. The marriage should be a source of pride for Newland, accustomed as he is to meeting the expe
"Unexpected obstacle. Please don't come till thirtieth. Anna." All the way from Charing Cross to Dover the train had hammered the words of the telegram into George Darrow's ears, rin
Selden paused in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart. It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to hi
The Age of Innocence is author Edith Wharton’s 12th novel. It won the 1921Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making it the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and thus Whart
Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeenie. But when Zeenie’s vivacious cousin enters their h
Shedding the constraints that existed for women in turn-of-the-century America, Edith Wharton set out in the newly invented "motor-car" to explore the cities and countryside of France. Originally p
Set among the glittering salons of Gilded Age New York, Edith Wharton’s most popular novel is a moving indictment of a society whose soul-crushing limitations destroy a woman too spirited to be contai
One of Edith Wharton’s most famous novels—the first by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize—exquisitely details a tragic struggle between love and responsibility in Gilded Age New York.?Newland Archer, a
