this book is touted as "edith wharton's most erotic book". the introduction blabs on and on about its eroticism, and how scandalous it is. so i have devised a little drinking game. i invite you - i entreat you - to prepare a shot glass with your favorite scotch or whiskey, and do a shot every time you start feeling a little hot from all the sexy good times. i pretty much guarantee that shot glass will be untouched by the end of your readings. this book is not erotic, even in the broadest, most mormonic sense. i think there is a kiss or two, which for wharton is hot, but it's a stretch to call it "erotic". this is a book where people get preggers by proximity: two people of opposite genders are seated beside each other, and suddenly - the lady is up the pole. this might be the first appearance of the "sexy librarian" stereotype, but erotic?? far from it, ms. white gloves...

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Bunches-of-thanks….
to many Goodreadsl friends who read this before me….especially to the classic readers (you know who you are). Thank you! I loved it … all it’s messy complexity.

….This was a wonderful story!
….Beautiful - lovely - writing!
….Written in the 1800’s - but there is a timeless contemporary feel to it.
….Set in a small village of North Dormer in New England
….Charity Royal, [great name] young, pretty, naive, unsophisticated….
a romantic dreamer falls in love with a man that is doomed from the start….a visitor from New York that represents everything the village town isn’t….wealth, class, freedom.
She recognizes her limitations….and with consequences to face from an affair that ends in pregnancy….those limitations are twofold.
Charity was thwarted by the ridged social order that governs her society in a small town…on the fringe of the larger world.

The plot thickens…
everyone is a compelling character…but it’s Charity I might continue to think about for months.
The ending leaves the reader contemplating…one that I felt was fitting.

This wonderful controversial story - a tangled sexual awakening story of a young girl in 1917 ….who had been abandoned by her moonshine parents — is caught between a war of freedom and repression.

As to whom to have mercy on - feel sympathetic for - compassion for - condolences for - be cognizant of…. the reader can decide…..
I love when an author does this.
I just might be becoming an Edith Wharton *fan*!

Refreshingly different take on the classic summer love story!

Charity makes all the choices that Lily Bart didn't make in The House of Mirth. She goes for the lover, the child, AND the secure marriage that society forces upon any young, pregnant woman without any family connections.

Doubtless, her "happily ever after" in North Dormer will contain a lot of drudgery, but she will have a summer night's dream, a child, and the knowledge that she MADE HER OWN DECISIONS to keep her going. Was it Lily's need for luxury and admiration that made her lose all while Charity - completely alone - found strength and will power to grab what life offered?

Edith Wharton knows her trade!

She is a master of the female psyche and the complications of female sexuality that leave young women vulnerable in ways young men could never be. Imagine Charity's visit to the abortion doctor without any intention of asking for her services - just to get the confirmation that she really was pregnant, as there was no other way for her to find out! And imagine her going back again after having been cheated and blackmailed - to pick up her brooch left as payment and the only symbol left of her summer love, except for her baby. Imagine the power of pregnancy to make women grow strong where they thought there was only weakness and failure...

Lovely story!

"The longing to escape, to get away from familiar faces, from places where she was known, had always been strong in her in moments of distress. She had a childish belief in the miraculous power of strange scenes and new faces to transform her life and wipe out bitter memories."

Ah, summertime. What better time of year to dream of escape, new love, and bright futures. Well, certainly Edith Wharton may reveal such dreams to you, but any reader familiar with this author knows that she will depict the bitter reality for you as well. I was not misled into thinking this would be a feel-good diversion during a family road trip. I have read Wharton and knew what to expect – exceptional writing and an ending that would leave me reflecting about the fate of at least one or two characters for the next several weeks. I finished this book entirely satisfied and once again enamored with one of my favorite authors!

Charity Royall. I love the name. It reflects the duality of her background and upbringing, as well as the inner turmoil of the character herself. At the age of five, Charity was rescued from ‘the Mountain’, a poverty-stricken community in the hills that loom over the small New England town of North Dormer. The people of the Mountain are likened to a band of outlaws living on the outskirts of society, and the people of the more ‘civilized’ village fear and often disdain their very existence. But Charity is constantly reminded that Lawyer Royall, a prominent citizen of North Dormer, is responsible for lifting her up to a higher standing and a better life. "She knew that she had been christened Charity to commemorate Mr. Royall’s disinterestedness in ‘bringing her down,’ and to keep alive in her a becoming sense of her dependence; she knew that Mr. Royall was her guardian, but that he had not legally adopted her, though everybody spoke of her as Charity Royall…"

Mr. Royall too is a complex man. Why would a man of his station and intellect choose to remain in the lifeless town of North Dormer? "North Dormer is at all times an empty place, and at three o’clock on a June afternoon its few able-bodied men are off in the fields or woods, and the women indoors, engaged in languid household drudgery." He is developed with skill through Ms. Wharton’s pen as well. He is a man I first despised, then pitied, and eventually regarded with a bit of grudging sympathy and acceptance. "Come to my age, a man knows the things that matter and the things that don’t; that’s about the only good turn life does us."

When a young man by the name of Lucius Harney suddenly appears in town, Charity is yanked from the monotony of town life into one with a glimmer of hope for that chance at love and escape. We as readers watch her grow and bloom. Anyone who has been in love can certainly relate to her now; I dare say perhaps you will even find yourself liking her. At the very least, you will empathize with her. "The only reality was the wondrous unfolding of her new self, the reaching out to the light of all her contracted tendrils. She had lived all her life among people whose sensibilities seemed to have withered for lack of use; and more wonderful, at first, than Harney’s endearments were the words that were a part of them. She had always thought of love as something confused and furtive, and he made it as bright and open as the summer air." Yet love is never simple, particularly in real life and no less so in a Wharton novel. There are the complexities of Charity’s background, the constant reminder of her origins. This becomes more intensely illuminated following a trip up the mountain with Harney. The chasm she senses between them is highlighted by their differences in education and opportunity. We keenly observe Charity’s struggle to bridge the gap. We wonder if she can successfully pull herself up from the drabness of North Dormer life, or whether she will molder like the dusty, untouched volumes on the shelves of the local library where she listlessly waits for a patron every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

If you have not yet read Wharton, I highly recommend starting with one of her short stories or novellas such as this. The settings are always beautifully described, and the themes are highly thought-provoking. The writing is very accessible and the exploration of social structures and the role of a woman can be applied even during our more ‘modern’ times. The plight of a woman and her more limited choices have certainly improved but have not been eradicated, and therefore should not be overlooked even now.

This novel was first published in 1917 and I can’t help but be amazed by that. The themes in this novel are current, and as real today as they were a hundred years ago.

Charity Royall was born to a rough life on The Mountain and was rescued at the age of five by a lawyer in the village and his wife. After the death of his wife, Mr. Royall did the best he knew how to raise the girl, and although she knew their family was better off than the rest of the village, Charity was filled with conflict and discontent.

From my perspective, the conflicts and contrasts in this novel were the main themes: age versus youth, village life versus city life, mountain life versus village life, leaving versus staying, alone versus loneliness, independence versus dependence.

All of the characters in this novel experienced opposing duties – they were pulled in different directions whereby sometimes the heart ruled and sometimes the head – both of which were also in conflict. How the characters navigate their internal and external struggles steers the plot and characters of this novel throughout. It is also part of what makes this a read as contemporary as our own time.

Edith Wharton’s writing is amazing. Her descriptions are so vivid that I found myself easily visualizing the surrounding scenes and places, yet she doesn’t burden the reader with details that don’t matter. I found that every description had significance emotionally and/or physically to the characters and/or the plot.

Although I hadn’t read any of Edith Wharton’s works before, I feel lucky that I somehow stumbled into this one as my first read. I am definitely looking forward to reading more of her work. For any person of the times she lived in, her writing stands out. I am even more impressed that somehow she broke through many different biases and prejudices of the time and still stands today as an exceptional woman writer – and an extraordinary writer among her contemporaries, male or female.

n  IN FULL CIRCLEn

This is a tale that comes to life during a Summer, and the descriptions of the airy landscape under the sun are amongst the most enrapturing aspects of this novel.

And then there is a story of conflict. First and foremost, of the heroine, Charity Royall, who is not a heroine at all. She is in conflict with her past, with her present, and, she suspects, with her future. She rebels against those who, charitably, have offered her a refuge and a life, granting her her name as a promising and foreboding start.

The story seems to follow a straight path, a well-known path, but too many doubts, too many uncertainties, too many false impressions, too many unknowns, too many remote possibilities, make that path seem more and more like a treacherous chimeras, and the only way left is to go back to the beginning.

And even if this could be taken as a lesson that one just has to accept things as they are and shun fantasies, I could not but feel that the main character ultimately fails. And even if she "had never known how to adapt herself, she could only break and tear and destroy" the often analyzed but still unresolved plights of women with their limited choices remain depressingly unresolved.

Love comes and goes; Illusions come and go. At the end only life remains.

As always, Wharton shows a brilliant ability to observe and articulate the strange little nuances of human motivation and behavior. Additionally, this story paints a fascinating picture in which time and place are superimposed onto each other: the stages of Charity Royall's life are tied to different parts of regional geography that, while physically close together, appear to be worlds apart. And the season of summer becomes a microcosm for life itself, from birth to maturation to death.

This isn't my favorite Wharton book: it lacks some of the subtlety that I associated with her stories, and the growing sense of resignation becomes almost too much at times. However, Wharton's way of looking at the world is something I'm always glad of having revisited.

Okay, well that was devastating. I didn’t expect Wharton to end the novel in the way that she did. It felt so unsatisfying, made me let out a labored sigh. Yet, this ending is what gives the story even more gravitas.

Considering when this was published (1917), it’s very ahead of its time. A coming of age about a young women’s sexual awakening —don’t expect racy scenes), it’s where/what that awakening leads to that makes it progressive territory.

Our main character Charity is all twisted up inside, working towards her future by trying to escape her past. Enter Lucius Harney, who just might have the power to help her accomplish that goal. But then there’s the major hurdle in the form of her guardian Mr. Royall who wants to keep her right where she is.

With a tone that feels as languid as the summer heat. That is, until the storm hits. The start of this book feels like a seduction, by the end we’re faced with harsh reality.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and now this book have given me Wharton fever. So sad and so good.

Gotta love a book about a library!

Very short novel. I think I finished it in about 6 hours?
A story of what it means to have pride and hopes only to have them crash and burn. I related to Charity, I regret to say. I hope it's not a spoiler to say to you that I became pregnant at the age of 17, which completely changed my life, my goals, my outlook. I was rooting for Charity. I was really hoping she wouldn't make certain decisions that, because of where she lived, how she was reared, the times, she thought she had no other choices.
This was a bit depressing. But it's a story that resonates today.

Written in Wharton's inimitable style the prose in this novella is of course beautiful. Every word and phrase lends itself to defining summer in a small country town. It makes for beautiful reading.
Charity is not a likeable character but I still felt sorry for her. It was apparent from the outset that life would probably not go well for her, especially in one of Edith Wharton's novels which are not famous for happy endings. The ending was pretty inevitable although it could have been worse.
For a classic written exactly one hundred years ago this one is an enjoyable, easy read.

"Charity was not very clear about the Mountain; but she knew it was a bad place, and a shame to have come from, and that, whatever befell her in North Dormer, she ought, as Miss Hatchard had once reminded her, to remember that she had been brought down from there, and hold her tongue and be thankful."

Charity Royall had been raised by Lawyer Royall and his now-deceased wife since the age of five in a small village in the Berkshires. She was hoping to someday get away from living in such an isolated location, so she took a job at the musty library for a few hours weekly to earn some money. Her life changed on the summer day that architect Lucius Harney, a worldly man from New York City, walked into the library. Charity fell in love with a man who came from a different social class.

"She had given him all she had--but what was it compared to the other gifts life held for him? She understood now the case of girls like herself to whom this kind of thing happened. They gave all they had, but their all was not enough: it could not buy more than a few moments. . . ."

"Summer" is a beautifully written book with gorgeous descriptions of the Berkshires, and the feelings of a first love and a sexual awakening. Published in 1917, it shows the limited options available to women because of social class, little education, and a lack of financial assets at that time. Charity Royall has few choices as she comes to understand this harsh reality.

If you are feeling really cynic and sad and are like 'this world sucks' and want someone to agree with you, Edith Wharton is just the person for you.

The book description on Goodreads says it has beeen compared to Madame Bovary and the comparision is very just in terms of romantic realism. Like Emma, Charity too is a woman in pursuing her happiness and in doing so, collides with restrictions put on her by society. Like Emma, collision brought her doom.