Edith Wharton : Novels : The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence (Library of America)

Edith Wharton : Novels : The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence (Library of America)
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The age of the not-so-innocent

An essential collection for any library

Edith Wharton : Novels : The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence (Library of America)
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

The age of the not-so-innocent.......2007-04-28

America and Europe of the 1800s were stiff, gilded, formal place, full of "old" families, rigid customs and social transgressions.

And nobody chronicled them better than Edith Wharton, who spun exquisitely barbed novels out of the social clashes of the late nineteenth century. This collection brings together four of her best books, exploring the nature of infidelity, passion, social-climbing and a woman's place in an unfriendly world.

"Age of Innocence" is a pretty ironic title. Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating count husband. At first, the two are friends, but then they become something more.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and a safe, dull life?

"The Custom of the Country" takes whatever is biting about "Age of Innocence" and magnifies it. Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, whose parents made a small-scale fortune and have moved to the glitzy world of New York. Undine wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford, but she thinks it's all worth it -- so she marries a besotted son of "old New York," but it doesn't take long for him to realize how incompatible they are.

And he doesn't realize that Undine is hiding a (then) shameful secret -- she was once married and quickly divorced from a vulgar businessman. In the present, Undine continues her quest for a life of pleasure, moving on to a French nobleman and getting just as dissatisfied with him. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

But the mockery in "House of Mirth" is not meant to be funny, but saddening and eye-opening. Like most not-so-rich women, Lily Bart is on the prowl for a marriage to keep her in luxury and affluent circles. What's more, she has the rapid intellect to be able to navigate these treacherous waters.

But her schemes and plans start to collapse, as she rejects all her adoring suitors because they aren't rich enough, and a nasty society matron decides to deflect attention from her adultery by accusing Lily falsely. Her life rapidly descends into a spiral of wretched unemployment and poverty, until the tragic finale.

"The Reef" is far more romantic in nature, but Wharton still tackles the touchy, shades-of-grey nature of relationships and infidelity. George Darrow receives a telegram postponing a meeting with his might-be-fiancee, reserved widow Anna Leath. Hurt and angry, he chaperons a young American woman, Sophie Viner, around Paris... and then has a fling with her.

Several months later, he and Anna have patched up their relationship, and are on their way to the altar and a steady, rewarding life together, travelling the world. But Anna's stepson is also secretly engaged -- and to Darrow's horror, it's none other than Sophie, Anna's daughter's governess. Of course, they can't keep this secret.

Wharton tended to pay attention to three things: human nature, society, and how the two often clashed. These four books are, in fact, crammed with the societal clashes of the time: infidelity, divorce, the impact of "new money," and what it took for a person to break out of the bounds of society -- and the cost it had.

Her writing is striking even now -- it has the formal, detailed quality of nineteenth-century prose, but it isn't nearly as stuffy. Instead, her writing is lush, perfumed languid and shimmering with repressed emotion -- even "Custom of the Country," with its nasty shallow anti-heroine, has moments of pure lyrical beauty, although they usually come from someone else.

These four novels are perhaps the best that Edith Wharton ever penned -- intricate looks at society and human nature, wrapped up in beautiful writing. Definitely a must read.

An essential collection for any library.......2000-09-19

Along with her good friend Henry James, Edith Wharton was an expert at studying the stiff social fabric of New York in the 1800's. In this collection of some of her best work, the reader is invited into the lives of characters who struggle against the confines of society, for love and/or their own sanity. The House of Mirth is one of the best novels I've ever read, with the thoroughly captivating character of Lily Bart taking center stage. Wharton proved that she could see love and all of its tribulations through the eyes of a man when she wrote The Age of Innocence. No matter what she wrote, she did so with unerring detail and an almost uncanny knack for "the right phrase" for every situation. This collection is an interesting study not only of "old New York" but of characters who stay with you long after the last sentence is savored.

The House of Mirth (Norton Critical Editions)

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Lily Bart -- a product of her time
What a lovely surprise...
Fascinating look at 19th Century New York Society
Interesting for it's time, but not my style
The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth (Norton Critical Editions)
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0393959015

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"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," warns Ecclesiastes 7:4, and so does the novel by Edith Wharton that takes its title from this call to heed. New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age.

One of Wharton's earliest descriptions of her heroine, in the library of her bachelor friend and sometime suitor Lawrence Selden, indicates that she appears "as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing room." Indeed, herein lies Lily's problem. She has, we're told, "been brought up to be ornamental," and yet her spirit is larger than what this ancillary role requires. By today's standards she would be nothing more than a mild rebel, but in the era into which Wharton drops her unmercifully, this tiny spark of character, combined with numerous assaults by vicious society women and bad luck, ultimately renders Lily persona non grata. Her own ambivalence about her position serves to open the door to disaster: several times she is on the verge of "good" marriage and squanders it at the last moment, unwilling to play by the rules of a society that produces, as she calls them, "poor, miserable, marriageable girls.

Lily's rather violent tumble down the social ladder provides a thumbnail sketch of the general injustices of the upper classes (which, incidentally, Wharton never quite manages to condemn entirely, clearly believing that such life is cruel but without alternative). From her start as a beautiful woman at the height of her powers to her sad finale as a recently fired milliner's assistant addicted to sleeping drugs, Lily Bart is heroic, not least for her final admission of her own role in her downfall. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my life and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward," she tells Selden as the book draws to a close. All manner of hideous socialite beasts--some of whose treatment by Wharton, such as the token social-climbing Jew, Simon Rosedale, date the book unfortunately--wander through the novel while Lily plummets. As her tale winds down to nothing more than the remnants of social grace and cold hard cash, it's hard not to agree with Lily's own assessment of herself: "I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else." Nevertheless, it's even harder not to believe that she deserved better, which is why The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up. --Melanie Rehak

Book Description

Introduction by Pamela Knights

Customer Reviews:

Lily Bart -- a product of her time.......2007-09-24

The House of Mirth is one of my all-time favorite novels. This tragic, ironic tale of a society darling's fall from grace has always brought tears to my eyes at the injustice of it all. Lily Bart is a true product of her time, both a fool for trusting the people around her and a heroine for refusing to settle for a loveless marriage, become a married man's mistress or stoop to blackmail to regain her status in society. Her love for Lawrence Seldon is both her strength and her downfall.

I don't want to get into a complete plot summary. Most people know the story of a socialite with limited means but with good family connections. Her gambling debts lead to her ultimate downfall, for she makes financial investments with a married man with ulterior motives. False rumors cut her out of polite society, and she is forced to make some harsh decisions. The story is more about the trappings in a hypocritical society where appearances and reputation are above human compassion. This is the third time I have read this book, and words still fail me when I make an attempt to describe this wonderful piece of work. Edith Wharton had a keen eye when it came to writing about her world during the turn of the century. Her novels are tragic and ironic, some would call them depressing, but she wrote about her world, and she most obviously knew how things were like in her world. A note to those who may be reading this book for the first time: read the story first, not the introduction. Twelve years ago, when I read this book for the first time, I made the horrible mistake of reading an author's introduction before reading the story, and the aforementioned author (whose name escapes me) almost spoiled the book for me. The introduction had a detailed description of the ending. It's a good thing I had decided to read the book anyway, but I was certainly not pleased. Read the book and savor it. This is one of the most insightful looks into America during the late nineteenth century I have ever read.

What a lovely surprise..........2007-07-30

The House of Mirth introduces the reader to Lily Bart, a woman living in the late 1800's in New York City. Both her parents have passed away leaving her with little income. She resides with her Aunt and lives way beyond her means. As a child she was part of high society and even though truthfully she cannot afford this life anymore she is opposed to dinginess and cannot think of living any other way. Thus she faces the task of marrying one of the non-desirable eligible bachelors in her social circles or not marrying, not being able to keep up her lifestyle and having to join a lower social circle.

This book was truly refreshing. This was my first time reading Wharton and I loved her writing style and character/place description. If you love classics I would definitely recommend the House of Mirth as one not to miss!

Fascinating look at 19th Century New York Society.......2007-07-29

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth" Ecclesiastes 7:4 KJV. Hence begins the story of Lily Bart, raised from birth with no other purpose in life than to be a beautiful ornament to society. Lily is left with little money of her own and must rely on family and friends until she can make an advantageous marriage. Unfortunately, she makes some poor choices in life which diminish her social status, which eventually leads her to attempts to eke out a living among the working class.

Wharton, who grew up in this same environment, pulls no punches. We see both the glamour and richness of late 19th century New York society, along with it's evil underside. Wharton's prose is glorious, but you have to pay attention and not wander or you'll end up back tracking and reading that paragraph again so as not to miss the story, you want to slow down and enjoy it like a fine red wine or a box of chocolate (or both). If you enjoy classic literature with a soap opera melodramatic tone to it (like Hardy's Tess), this should be right up your alley. So many times Lily and Seldon missed their opportunity for happiness! Have the hanky ready for the last chapters, you'll need it.

Interesting for it's time, but not my style.......2007-07-14

Taking into account that this book was written a century ago, it is an interesting picture of society life in New York back then. But I felt the author was trying too hard. Her later work, while still written in a way that is hard for me to get through without getting bored, is much easier to read. The Age of Innocence(a book she wrote about 15 years later) is written in a bit simpler style, and is, in my opinion, more effective. I felt like I had to wade through a lot of extraneous information to get to the main plot points in this book. I will not be reading much else from Edith Wharton- she is simply not one of my favorites.

The House of Mirth.......2007-04-30

Lily Bart is beautiful, but by the standards of her era, she is not young. She is honorable, but she is not good. She is devoted to luxury and dissipation. She is "so evidently the victim of the civilization that produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate."

Lily, the presumptive heiress of Mrs. Peniston, the wealthy aunt with whom she lives, enjoys playing cards for money, a vice that leads her to accumulate a debt she cannot pay. The debt puts her in the power of a dishonorable acquaintance and places her on a Dantesque journey downward through the social levels of wealthy New York pleasure seekers during the late 19th century.

Lily has feelings for Selden, a bachelor lawyer, but does he have them for her? And can he save Lily from the fate that awaits her at the end of her declining trajectory? These are the questions that maintain suspense during this entertaining cautionary tale.

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

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Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Casebook (Casebooks in Criticism)

Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

New Essays on The House of Mirth (The American Novel)
The House of Mirth (Dover Thrift Editions)
CliffsNotes On Wharton's The House of Mirth
A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton (Historical Guides to American Authors)
The House of Mirth

ASIN: 0195156021

Book Description

Edith Wharton is recognized as one of the twentieth century's most important American writers. The House of Mirth not only initiated three decades of Wharton's popular and critical acclaim, it helped move women's literature into a new place of achievement and prominence. The House of Mirth is
perhaps Wharton's best-known and most frequently read novel, and scholars and teachers consider it an essential introduction to Wharton and her work. This casebook collects critical essays addressing a broad spectrum of topics and utilizing a range of critical and theoretical approaches. It also
includes Wharton's introduction to the 1936 edition of the novel and her discussion of the composition of the novel from her autobiography.

Also available: A Historical Guide to Edith Wharton, edited by Carol J. Singley, ISBN 0-19-513591-1.

CliffsNotes On Wharton's The House of Mirth

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CliffsNotes On Wharton's The House of Mirth
Bruce Edward Walker
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Book Description

The original CliffsNotes study guides offer expert commentary on major themes, plots, characters, literary devices, and historical background. The latest generation of titles in this series also feature glossaries and visual elements that complement the classic, familiar format.

CliffsNotes on The House of Mirth takes you into the waning years of the Gilded Age and the moral bankruptcy of New York City's elite class. Edith Wharton's story of a woman — whose beauty causes men to desire to possess her and women to be jealous of her — reflects the complicated struggle of the individual against the social strictures of a powerful, and triumphant, moneyed class.

This concise supplement to the satirically critical The House of Mirth, helps you understand the overall structure of the novel, actions and motivations of the characters, and the social and cultural perspectives of the author. Features that help you study include

Chapter-by-chapter summaries and commentaries
A character map that outline key characteristics and relationships
Insightful character analyses
A critical essay about the opulence and emptiness of the Gilded Age
A review section that tests your knowledge

Classic literature or modern modern-day treasure — you'll understand it all with expert information and insight from CliffsNotes study guides.

Book Description

Through analysis of metaphors of consciousness in the philosophy and fiction of William James, Henry James and Edith Wharton, this work traces the significance of representations of knowledge, gender and social class, revealing how writers conceived of the self in modern literature.

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Routledge Guide (Routledge Guides to Literature)

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Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Routledge Guide (Routledge Guides to Literature)
Janet Beer
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0415350093

Book Description

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905) is a sharp and satirical, but also sensitive and tragic analysis of a young, single woman trying to find her place in a materialistic and unforgiving society. The House of Mirth offers a fascinating insight into the culture of the time and, as suggested by the success of recent film adaptations, it is also an enduring tale of love, ambition and social pressures still relevant today.

Including a selection of illustrations from the original magazine publication, which offers a unique insight to what the contemporary reader would have seen, this volume also provides:

an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of The House of Mirth
a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
a selection of new critical essays on the The House of Mirth, by Edie Thornton, Katherine Joslin, Janet Beer, Elizabeth Nolan, Kathy Fedorko and Pamela Knights, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key critical approaches identified in the survey section
cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
suggestions for further reading.

Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of The House of Mirth and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Wharton's text.

Edith Wharton: Novels The House of Mirth, the Reef, the Custom of the Country, the Age of Innocence

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Edith Wharton: Novels The House of Mirth, the Reef, the Custom of the Country, the Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth,The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence

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Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth,The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

In this Readers' Guide, Stuart Hutchinson analyzes the most significant writings on The House of Mirth (1905), The Custom of the Country (1913) and The Age of Innocence (1920). Beginning with Wharton's own comments on the novels, he moves on to the contemporary responses of Henry James and challenging reviews such as Katherine Mansfield's, before turning to stimulating critical writing from later perspectives. Geoffrey Walton, Blake Nevius, and R. W. B. Lewis feature among others, followed by feminist insights from Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Elizabeth Ammons, and Elaine Showalter. This Guide is an essential resource for understanding the changing responses to Wharton's work.

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The House of Mirth (Everyman S.)
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Phoenix Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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