The House of Mirth - Hardcover

by Edith Wharton (Author), Danuta Reah (Introduction by)

In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton gives us a witty and piercingly insightful dark satire about the privileged society of early twentieth-century New York.

Part of the Macmillan Collector's Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an introduction by novelist Danuta Reah.

This is a world that inspired the lavish costume drama The Gilded Age, written by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey.

Lily Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful and charming. She has expensive tastes, loves to gamble and socializes with the wealthy upper-class families of New York. But her meagre finances are dwindling and her place in society is slipping away from her. Her only hope of security is to find a suitable husband. However, Lily has an independence of spirit that stands in the way of her committing to the available suitors. As her options diminish, friends become enemies and her situation grows increasingly perilous.

Author Biography

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married a Boston socialite; the couple travelled frequently and settled in France in 1907, but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. On her trips to Europe Wharton became a close friend of the novelist Henry James. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912) and The Age of Innocence (1920). Wharton was decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War. She died in France in 1937.

Danuta Reah is a novelist and an academic who works in the field of English language and linguistics.