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FRANKLIN FICTION :: ALSO EVERYMAN'S EDITION :: Jennifer Egan on Edith Wharton’s masterpiece @guardian http://bitly.com/2NjRyLD
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The House of Mirth / The Reef / The Custom of the Country / The Age of Innocence
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Edith Wharton’s full and glamorous life bridged the literary worlds of two continents and two centuries. Born in 1862 into an exclusive New York society against whose rigid codes of behavior she often rebelled, she lived to regret the passing of that stable if old-fashioned community and to appreciate the sense of personal identity its definitions provided. She became a prolific professional writer, author of more than forty published volumes, including novels, short stories (many of them tales of the supernatural), poetry, war reportage, travel writing, and books on gardens and house decoration. An expatriate in France for three decades before her death in 1937, she included among her many distinguished friends men as various as Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, Kenneth Clark, and André Gide.
The four novels in this Library of America volume show Wharton at the height of her powers as a social observer and critic, examining American and European lives with a vision rich in detail, satire, and tragedy. In all of them her strong and autobiographical impulse is disciplined by her writer’s craft and her unfailing regard for her audience.
The House of Mirth (1905), Wharton’s tenth book and her first novel of contemporary life, was an immediate runaway bestseller, with 140,000 copies in print within three months of publication. The story of young Lily Bart and her tragic sojourn among the upper class of turn-of-the-century New York, it touches on the insidious effects of social convention and upon the sexual and financial aggression to which women of independent spirit were exposed.
The Reef (1912) is the story of two couples whose marriage plans are upset by the revelation of a past affair between George Darrow (a mature bachelor) and Sophy Vener, who happens to be the fiancée of his future wife’s stepson. Henry James called the novel “a triumph of method,” and it shares the rich nuance of his own The Golden Bowl.
The Custom of the Country (1913) is the amatory saga of Undine Spragg of Apex City—beautiful, spoiled, and ambitious—whose charms conquer New York and European society. Vulgar and voracious, she presides over a series of men, representing the old and new aristocracies of both continents, in a comedy drawn unmistakably from life.
The Age of Innocence (1920) is set in the New York of Wharton’s youth, when the rules and taboos of her social “tribe” held as-yet unchallenged sway. A quasi-anthropological study of a remembered culture and its curious conventions, it tells the story of the Countess Olenska (formerly Ellen Mingott), refugee from a disastrous European marriage, and Newland Archer, heir to a tradition of respectability and family honor, as they struggle uneasily against their sexual attraction.
The four novels in this Library of America volume show Wharton at the height of her powers as a social observer and critic, examining American and European lives with a vision rich in detail, satire, and tragedy. In all of them her strong and autobiographical impulse is disciplined by her writer’s craft and her unfailing regard for her audience.
The House of Mirth (1905), Wharton’s tenth book and her first novel of contemporary life, was an immediate runaway bestseller, with 140,000 copies in print within three months of publication. The story of young Lily Bart and her tragic sojourn among the upper class of turn-of-the-century New York, it touches on the insidious effects of social convention and upon the sexual and financial aggression to which women of independent spirit were exposed.
The Reef (1912) is the story of two couples whose marriage plans are upset by the revelation of a past affair between George Darrow (a mature bachelor) and Sophy Vener, who happens to be the fiancée of his future wife’s stepson. Henry James called the novel “a triumph of method,” and it shares the rich nuance of his own The Golden Bowl.
The Custom of the Country (1913) is the amatory saga of Undine Spragg of Apex City—beautiful, spoiled, and ambitious—whose charms conquer New York and European society. Vulgar and voracious, she presides over a series of men, representing the old and new aristocracies of both continents, in a comedy drawn unmistakably from life.
The Age of Innocence (1920) is set in the New York of Wharton’s youth, when the rules and taboos of her social “tribe” held as-yet unchallenged sway. A quasi-anthropological study of a remembered culture and its curious conventions, it tells the story of the Countess Olenska (formerly Ellen Mingott), refugee from a disastrous European marriage, and Newland Archer, heir to a tradition of respectability and family honor, as they struggle uneasily against their sexual attraction.
1328 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1,1920
This edition
- Format
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1328 pages, Hardcover
- Published
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May 12, 1986 by Library of America
- ISBN
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9780940450318
- ASIN
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0940450313
- Language
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English
About the author
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Edith Wharton was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, for her novel, The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, in 1996. Her other well-known works are The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories.
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Rating(3.7 / 5.0, 40 votes)
5 stars
8(20%)
4 stars
13(33%)
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19(48%)
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40 reviews All reviews
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I read this as part of a literature discussion group, paired with Phillip Roth's American Pastoral. While it was hard to connect with turn-of-the-century New York City, especially given the upper-upper class insularity of Wharton's 40 Families world, the writing--so descriptive and lyrical--was a joy.
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Have read House of Mirth. Dry but interesting in the psychological dynamics of the characters. Essentially it's interesting for the head games and social intrigue of the rich social climbing characters, and those already at the top trying to stay there(or who fall down).
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The novel I just read in the collection was The Age of Innocence. (I read The House of Mirth over 10 years ago and it is also excellent. I have not gotten to the other two yet.) Wow. What a writer. Set in 1875 in New York high society, the novel is both incredibly beautiful (the sentiments of the main character towards the woman he loves, who happens to be his fiancee's cousin, as well as the writing itself) and somewhat infuriating when you realize how small-minded and even cruel the seemingly genteel characters can be under their veneer of civility. Newland Archer must decide if he should follow thru on his commitment to marry young and beautiful May Archer or follow his increasingly strong feelings for her cousin Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York to escape an unhappy marriage with a Polish nobleman, but the plot is just as much about the accepted modes of behavior (and deception) within a small social circle and how far one can push against them. Impossible to say how good Wharton is in a brief summary -- just read it!
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The House of Mirth*****
The Age of Innocence*****
The Age of Innocence*****
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Age of Innocence
A delightful look at a long past way of life by an author of the era. Her brief, admiring reference to Theodore Roosevelt showed that, like him, she understood that, as Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a changing”.
A delightful look at a long past way of life by an author of the era. Her brief, admiring reference to Theodore Roosevelt showed that, like him, she understood that, as Bob Dylan sang, “the times they are a changing”.
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Very interesting to see how the other half once lived. I enjoyed the book, however I confess to enjoying the Merchant & Ivory movie versions better. So lush, it colored in the prose.
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I just finished reading The Reef in this collection of four of Edith Wharton’s books. I’ve previously read The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth. While I enjoyed the others very much, this time I was overwhelmed by her skill at constructing long, descriptive sentences. Using a combination of commas, semi-colons, and colons, she strings phrases together like pearls.
Her writing strikes me as a mix of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. If Jane Austen’s books are comedies of manners, then Edith Wharton’s are dramas of manners. And where Dickens long strings of phrases bring to life the sights, sounds, and smells of a dreary London slum, Ms. Wharton connects the dots of emotions and thoughts of upper-class people trained to present a reserved facade to everyone.
This book confused me in two ways; the title and the ending. I’m not sure what “The Reef” refers to and I’m not a good researcher. Please let me now if you have any light to shed on how she chose the title.
And I’m not sure what to think of the ending. It just seems to stop, like a painter’s instincts telling him to left the brush up off of the canvas, even though others might see it as unfinished. It’s not her last book and she shows no sign of running out of steam or of rushing the ending as if to make a deadline. Did she spend so much time connecting the dots of their thoughts and emotions so by the end we would know enough about each character to know what happened? Did she leave us hanging on purpose? If you have an idea please let me know.
This edition is published by the Library of America, “a nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving America’s best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts,” and at a very reasonable cost. They absolutely live up to their goals. The beautiful page layout on soft-white, acid-free paper in a cloth binding that allows the book to stay open easily without breaking made reading a visual, tactile, intellectual pleasure. After moving several times in the past year I’ve become a big fan of ereaders. But this edition has earned space on the shelf and, more importantly, in the moving box. More info at: www.loa.org.
Her writing strikes me as a mix of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. If Jane Austen’s books are comedies of manners, then Edith Wharton’s are dramas of manners. And where Dickens long strings of phrases bring to life the sights, sounds, and smells of a dreary London slum, Ms. Wharton connects the dots of emotions and thoughts of upper-class people trained to present a reserved facade to everyone.
This book confused me in two ways; the title and the ending. I’m not sure what “The Reef” refers to and I’m not a good researcher. Please let me now if you have any light to shed on how she chose the title.
And I’m not sure what to think of the ending. It just seems to stop, like a painter’s instincts telling him to left the brush up off of the canvas, even though others might see it as unfinished. It’s not her last book and she shows no sign of running out of steam or of rushing the ending as if to make a deadline. Did she spend so much time connecting the dots of their thoughts and emotions so by the end we would know enough about each character to know what happened? Did she leave us hanging on purpose? If you have an idea please let me know.
This edition is published by the Library of America, “a nonprofit publisher dedicated to preserving America’s best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts,” and at a very reasonable cost. They absolutely live up to their goals. The beautiful page layout on soft-white, acid-free paper in a cloth binding that allows the book to stay open easily without breaking made reading a visual, tactile, intellectual pleasure. After moving several times in the past year I’ve become a big fan of ereaders. But this edition has earned space on the shelf and, more importantly, in the moving box. More info at: www.loa.org.
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