Edith Wharton

Full text. First published in 1905, The House of Mirth shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities. Lily Bart, beautiful, witty and sophisticated, is accepted by 'old money' and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears thirty, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her in the luxury she has come to expect. Whilst many have sought her, something - fastidiousness or integrity- prevents her from making a 'suitable' match.

Full text. 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 awakening. Summer is the story of proud and independent Charity Royall, a child of mountain moonshiners adopted by a family in a poor New England town, who has a passionate love affair with Lucius Harney, an educated young man from the city. Wharton broke the conventions of woman's romantic fiction by making Charity a thoroughly contemporary woman--in touch with her feelings and sexuality, yet kept from love and the larger world she craves by the overwhelming pressures of environment and heredity. Praised for its realism and candor by such writers as Joseph Conrad and Henry James and compared to Flaubert's "Madame Bovary," "Summer" was one of Wharton's personal favorites of all her novels and remains as fresh and relevant today as when it was first written.

Full text. Edith Wharton's First World War short story "Coming Home" was presented to its original readers in 1915-16 as an atrocity narrative-a distinctly contemporary text within Xingu and Other Stories, a book collection whose general emphasis is on old upper-class New York, cosmopolitan marital affairs, and haunted pasts. Early reviews of Coming Home placed it mainly as a well-constructed work that vividly depicts what had become in war propaganda commonplace themes of physical destruction and sexual trespass. Reviewers then and critics since have focused on the use of suppression and omission in the text. Yet this story of wartime atrocities in north-eastern France also enfolds within its layered focalization a meta-narrative containing some familiar topics in Wharton's fiction, including the emergence of female agency, patriarchal recidivism, the transformation of social hegemonies, and hereditary degeneration. If the story addresses received ideas of violation and retribution common in the genre of war-atrocity publications, it does so not only to play upon readers' anticipations of the unfolding plot, but also to explore deeper assumptions about social norms and gender expectations. Beyond that achievement, it poses questions about the reliability of language, thereby undermining the atrocity story genre itself and questioning the reliability of sources and the ability of any writer to represent the unfathomable nature of war. In this vortex of literary and philosophical complications, Coming Home adds a further existential complexity as it ultimately destabilizes the concept of home as a space of secure origins and grounded meaning.

The Age of Innocence centers on one society couple's impending marriage and the introduction of a scandalous woman whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assumptions and mores of turn of the century New York society, it never devolves into an outright condemnation of the institution. In fact, Wharton considered this novel an "apology" for the earlier, more brutal and critical, "The House of Mirth". Not to be overlooked is the author's attention to detailing the charms and customs of this caste. The novel is lauded for its accurate portrayal of how the nineteenth-century East Coast American upper class lived and this combined with the social tragedy earned Wharton a Pulitzer - the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman.

Ethan Frome is a novella published in 1911 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel is framed by the literary device of an extended flashback. The prologue opens with an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield, a fictional town in New England, while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. Curious, the narrator sets out to learn about him. He learns that Frome's limp arose from having been injured in a "smash- up" twenty-four years before... Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937) was a Pulitzer Prize- winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight. She was well acquainted with many of her era's other literary and public gures, including Theodore Roosevelt. This classic title has been published by RADLEY BOOKS. Each RADLEY CLASSIC is a meticulously restored, luxurious and faithful reproduction of a classic book; produced with elegant text layout, clarity of presentation, and stylistic features that make reading a true pleasure. Special attention is given to legible fonts and adequate letter sizing, correct line length for readability, generous margins and triple lead (lavish line separation); plus we do not allow any mistakes/changes/additions to creep into the author's words. Visit RADLEY BOOKS at www.radleybooks.com (or search RADLEY CLASSIC on Amazon) to see more classic book titles in this series.

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 d cor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating, and through a most intricate and satisfying plot that follows Undine's marriages and affairs, she conveys a vision of social behavior that is both supremely informed and supremely disenchanted.