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House of Mirth : Introduction by Pamela Knights by Edith Wharton (1991, Hardcover)

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About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherKnopf Doubleday Publishing Group

ISBN-100679406670

ISBN-139780679406679

eBay Product ID (ePID)14267

Product Key Features

Book TitleHouse of Mirth : Introduction by Pamela Knights

Number of Pages400 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year1991

TopicContemporary Women, General, Literary

GenreFiction

AuthorEdith Wharton

Book SeriesEveryman's Library Classics Ser.

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.2 in

Item Weight17.8 Oz

Item Length8.3 in

Item Width5.2 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

TitleLeadingThe

Dewey Edition23

ReviewsWith an introduction by Elizabeth Hardwick, Contemporary Reviews, and Letters Between Edith Wharton and Her Publisher " A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys."--Edith Wharton Lily Bart knows that she must marry--her expensive tastes and mounting debts demand it--and, at twenty-nine, she has every artful wile at her disposal to secure that end. But attached as she is to the social world of her wealthy suitors, something in her rebels against the insipid men whom circumstances compel her to charm. "Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape," Lily muses as she contemplates the prospect of being bored all afternoon by Percy Grice, dull but undeniably rich, "on the bare chance that he might ulti- mately do her the honor of boring her for life?" Lily is distracted from her prey by the arrival of Lawrence Selden, handsome, quick-witted, and penniless. A runaway bestseller on publication in 1905, The House of Mirth is a brilliant romantic novel of manners, the book that established Edith Wharton as one of America's greatest novelists. " A tragedy of our modern life, in which the relentlessness of what men used to call Fate and esteem, in their ignorance, a power beyond their control, is as vividly set forth as ever it was by Aeschylus or Shakespeare." --The New York Times Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1920 for The Age of Innocence. But it was the publication of The House of Mirth in 1905 that marked Wharton's coming-of-age as a writer. From the Trade Paperback edition., "A tragedy of our modern life, in which the relentlessness of what men used to call Fate and esteemâ€¦. is as vividly set forth as ever it was by Aeschylus or Shakespeare." -The New York Times "Uniquely authentic among American novels of manners." -Louis Auchincloss "Brilliantâ€¦.[Lily Bart] is a grand tragic heroine, fit to take center stage with Manon or Emma Bovary, Gwendolen Harleth or Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Anna Karenina or Isabel Archer." -Hermione Lee, "A tragedy of our modern life, in which the relentlessness of what men used to call Fate and esteemâ€¦. is as vividly set forth as ever it was by Aeschylus or Shakespeare." - The New York Times "Uniquely authentic among American novels of manners." -Louis Auchincloss "Brilliantâ€¦.[Lily Bart] is a grand tragic heroine, fit to take center stage with Manon or Emma Bovary, Gwendolen Harleth or Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Anna Karenina or Isabel Archer." -Hermione Lee

Dewey Decimal813/.52

SynopsisIn The House of Mirth , Edith Wharton depicts the glittering salons of Gilded Age New York with precision and wit, even as she movingly portrays the obstacles that impeded women's choices at the turn of the century. 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 debt and dishonor, her story takes on the resonance of classic tragedy. One of Wharton's most bracing and nuanced portraits of the life of women in a hostile, highly ordered world, The House of Mirth exposes the truths about American high society that its denizens most wished to deny. With an introduction by Pamela Knights.