Edith Wharton
Newland Archer saw little to envy in the marriages of his friends, yet he prided himself that in May Welland he had found the companion of his needs—tender and impressionable, with equal purity of mind and manners. The engagement was announced discreetly, but all of New York society was soon privy to this most perfect match, a union of families and circumstances cemented...
2) Ethan Frome
5) Summer
6) The reef
Brimming with romance and important social questions, Edith Wharton's novel The Fruit of the Tree offers something for everyone. The story expertly weaves themes of workers' rights, medical ethics, and end-of-life care into the framework of a conventional—but pulse-pounding—romantic entanglement.
9) Ghosts
In her own lifetime, Edith Wharton's talents were often pigeonholed and downplayed as appealing to only a small audience of upper-crust society doyennes. Today, however, critics regard her as one of the most important writers of the early twentieth century, rivaling even luminaries such as Henry James in literary significance. In this novel, the author of such masterworks as The Age of Innocence takes aim at issues of religious dogmatism
...Though best known for having written novels such as The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, American author Edith Wharton was also a master of the short story format. Regarded by many critics as her most accomplished collection of short tales, Crucial Instances brings together seven gripping and nuanced stories of the American upper glass in the Gilded Age.
12) The Touchstone
Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money; his career is in ruins and he wants to marry his beautiful fiancee. He unearths the passionate love-letters written to him by the famous, now-deceased author Margaret Aubyn, and sells them, erasing only his name. He makes a fortune from the betrayal and begins his marriage from it.
The Touchstone was Edith Wharton's first published novella.
14) Sanctuary
In novels like The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton demonstrated a remarkable talent for exposing the dark underbelly of American high society. In Sanctuary, the tale of doomed marriage propped up by the protagonist's altruism, Wharton further explores the question of whether it is our nature or our upbringing that determines one's character and moral fiber.
This compilation of Wharton's short fiction features three additional...