The House of Mirth

Hardcover, 558 pages

Published Oct. 15, 2018 by Franklin Classics.

ISBN:
978-0-343-28965-2
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Beautiful, intelligent, and hopelessly addicted to luxury, Lily Bart is the heroine of this Wharton masterpiece. But it is her very taste and moral sensibility that render her unfit for survival in this world.

50 editions

Second novel by Edith Wharton which propelled her among American authors

Lily Bart, about 29 at the start of the novel, had been orphaned a few years prior, and raised by Julia Peniston, her aunt. Lily is accepted in New York City High Society of Nouveaux-Riches, and courted by several men, whom she refuses to marry, not wishing to settle with any one of them, in her yearning to be free of societal pressures, conventions and expected Rôle.

In this novel, Wharton depicts a complex woman, at the turn of the last century, around 1899-1900, who is torn between her wishes for independent, luxurious lifestyle in the Higher Classes, and societal pressures and expectations for her to marry a rich man to secure her positions, both financially and socially. Lily uses her charms – she is depicted a stunning beauty – but refuses marriage proposals.

In her attempt to safeguard the reputation of a person for whom she has very complicated …