Edith Wharton
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Language
English
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Description
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
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...
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...
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Series
Language
English
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Description
The beautiful, much-desired Lily Bart has been raised to be one of the perfect wives of the wealthy upper class, but her spark of character and independent drive prevents her from becoming one of the many women who will succeed in those circles. Though her desire for a comfortable life means that she cannot marry for love without money, her resistance to the rules of the social elite endangers her many marriage proposals. As Lily spirals down into...
3) Ethan Frome
Author
Language
English
Description
Set in New England, a farmer struggles to survive a bare existence, tethered to his farm, first by his helpless parents and then by a hypochondriac wife. Yet, when his wife's alluring cousin comes to stay, his dreams are rekindled.
Author
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Language
English
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Description
Considered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton's second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior décor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly...
5) Summer
Author
Language
English
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Description
A new Englander of humble origins, Charity Royall is swept into a torrid love affair with an artistically inclined young man from New York City, but her dreams of a future with him are thwarted. A bold, provocative work, SUMMER was an immediate sensation when first published in 1917 and still stands as one of Wharton's greatest achievements.
7) The reef
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, is intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success.
Set in and around London, "The Reef" is a story of complex morality and its intricately woven place in society. This narrative primarily...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Susy Branch and Nick Lansing, two members of New York high society who are financially strapped, decide to get married so that they can remain in the social circles to which they have become accustomed, planning to use their wedding gifts to better position one another's opportunity to remarry for money.
9) Ghosts
Author
Publisher
New York Review Books
Pub. Date
2021.
Language
English
Formats
Description
"No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton's most dedicated admirers are unaware that she was a master of the form. In fact, one of Wharton's final literary acts was assembling Ghosts, a personal selection of her own most chilling stories, written between 1902 and 1937. In 'The Lady's Maid's Bell,' the earliest tale included here, a servant's dedication to her mistress continues...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
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.
Author
Series
Library of America volume 121
Publisher
Library of America
Pub. Date
[2001]
Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"With this volume (a companion to Collected Stories 1911-1937), The Library of America presents the finest of Wharton's achievement in short fiction, drawn from the more than eighty stories she published over the course of her career. Here, in settings familiar and exotic, are all of Wharton's characteristic qualities and themes: her candid exploration of relations between the sexes; her satire, sometimes gentle, sometimes despairing, of social class...
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