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Three Novels of Old New York

The House of Mirth; The Custom of the the Country; The Age of Innocence

Three Novels of Old New York( )
Author: Wharton, Edith
ISBN:978-0-14-018984-1
Publication Date:Jun 1997
Publisher:Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint:Penguin Classics
Book Format:Paperback
List Price:USD $16.95
Book Description:

"Edith Wharton made the world of Old New York her own, the wealthy high society so powerfully depicted in these three elegantly ironic novels." "Revolving around the marriage question, they explore the dilemma of women and men held within the rigid bounds of social convention. Thus in The House of Mirth, the novel that first brought Edith Wharton to fame, the complex, poignant heroine Lily Bart must either break away and find a more meaningful existence, or become a part of the...
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Book Details
Pages:992
Detailed Subjects: Fiction / Literary
Fiction / City Life
Literary Criticism / American / General
Fiction / Family Life / Marriage & Divorce
Physical Dimensions (W X L X H):5.12 x 7.76 x 1.54 Inches
Book Weight:1.24 Pounds
Author Biography
Warton, Edith (Author)
Edith Wharton was a woman of extreme contrasts; brought up to be a leisured aristocrat, she was also dedicated to her career as a writer. She wrote novels of manners about the old New York society from which she came, but her attitude was consistently critical. Her irony and her satiric touches, as well as her insight into human character, continue to appeal to readers today.

As a child, Wharton found refuge from the demands of her mother's social world in her father's library and in making up stories. Her marriage at age 23 to Edward ("Teddy") Wharton seemed to confirm her place in the conventional role of wealthy society woman, but she became increasingly dissatisfied with the "mundanities" of her marriage and turned to writing, which drew her into an intellectual community and strengthened her sense of self. After publishing two collections of short stories, The Greater Inclination (1899) and Crucial Instances (1901), she wrote her first novel, The Valley of Decision (1902), a long, historical romance set in eighteenth-century Italy. Her next work, the immensely popular The House of Mirth (1905), was a scathing criticism of her own "frivolous" New York society and its capacity to destroy her heroine, the beautiful Lily Bart.

As Wharton became more established as a successful writer, Teddy's mental health declined and their marriage deteriorated. In 1907 she left America altogether and settled in Paris, where she wrote some of her most memorable stories of harsh New England rural life---Ethan Frome (1911) and Summer (1917)---as well as The Reef (1912), which is set in France. All describe characters forced to make moral choices in which the rights of individuals are pitted against their responsibilities to others. She also completed her most biting satire, The Custom of the Country (1913), the story of Undine Spragg's climb, marriage by marriage, from a midwestern town to New York to a French chateau. During World War I, Wharton dedicated herself



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