4.0
The House of Mirth
ByPublisher Description
A bestseller when it was published nearly a century ago, this literary classic critiquing New York City’s Gilded Age elite established Edith Wharton as one of the most important American writers in the twentieth century—now with a new introduction from Pulitzer Prize–winning author Jennifer Egan.
Wharton’s first literary success—a devastatingly accurate portrait of New York’s aristocracy at the turn of the century—is considered by many to be her most important novel, and Lily Bart her most unforgettable character.
Impoverished but well-born, the beautiful and beguiling Lily realizes a secure future depends on her acquiring a wealthy husband. But with her romantic indiscretion, gambling debts, and a maelstrom of social disasters, Lily’s ill-fated attempt to rise to the heights of society ultimately leads to her downfall.
From the conventionality of old New York to the forced society of the French Riviera, from old money to the nouveaux riches, Wharton weaves a brilliantly satiric yet sensitive exploration of manners and morality. The House of Mirth reveals Wharton’s unparalleled gifts as a storyteller and her clear-eyed observations of the savagery beneath the well-bred surface of high society.
Wharton’s first literary success—a devastatingly accurate portrait of New York’s aristocracy at the turn of the century—is considered by many to be her most important novel, and Lily Bart her most unforgettable character.
Impoverished but well-born, the beautiful and beguiling Lily realizes a secure future depends on her acquiring a wealthy husband. But with her romantic indiscretion, gambling debts, and a maelstrom of social disasters, Lily’s ill-fated attempt to rise to the heights of society ultimately leads to her downfall.
From the conventionality of old New York to the forced society of the French Riviera, from old money to the nouveaux riches, Wharton weaves a brilliantly satiric yet sensitive exploration of manners and morality. The House of Mirth reveals Wharton’s unparalleled gifts as a storyteller and her clear-eyed observations of the savagery beneath the well-bred surface of high society.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe House of Mirth Reviews
4.0
EmBear
Created 3 months agoShare
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“Utterly heart-breaking. A character who I at first despised, and came to understand, and feel compassion for, and hope to be rescued. This is at heart an eviscerating criticism of the superficiality and cruelty of good society, from which even the novel’s hero does not escape, being as he is too entangled in society’s judgement and conventionality to take the leap that would have saved Lily.”
Clarisse
Created 10 months agoShare
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kpop_reads
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Emma
Created about 1 year agoShare
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About Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.
Other books by Edith Wharton
Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan is the author of six previous books of fiction: Manhattan Beach, winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction; A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Keep; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award Finalist; and The Invisible Circus. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, and The New York Times Magazine. Her website is JenniferEgan.com.
Other books by Jennifer Egan
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