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(0)Edith Wharton
Author
Summary
An elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. In the highest circle of New York social life during the 1870's, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, prepares to marry the docile May Welland. Before their engagement is announced, he meets May's cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned to New York after a long absence.
2) Ethan Frome
Author
Lexile Measure
1200L
Summary
A marked departure from Edith Wharton's usual ironic contemplation of the fashionable New York society to which she herself belonged, Ethan Frome is a sharply etched portrait of the simple inhabitants of a nineteenth-century New England village. The protagonist, Ethan Frome, is a man tormented by a passionate love for his ailing wife's young cousin. Trapped by the bonds of marriage and the fear of public condemnation, he is ultimately destroyed by...
4) Summer
Author
Summary
First published in 1917, "Summer" is one of only two novels by Edith Wharton not set in the upper-class society of New York. It is instead set in New England and was very controversial at the time it was published as it is the story of the sexual awakening of a young woman, named Charity Royall. Charity, the daughter of mountain moonshiners, was abandoned by her poor parents and adopted by her small town's most learned person, Lawyer Royall. Charity...
Author
Summary
Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are two young and attractive, but penniless New Yorkers. They decide to marry, but realize their chances of happiness are slim without the wealth, taken for granted by their more privileged friends. Nick and Susy agree to separate if either of them encounters a more eligible proposition and set out on a lavish honeymoon in Europe, funded by their wealthier friends. Unexpected feelings and jealous passions ensue, set against...
Author
Summary
First published in 1913, Edith Wharton's "The Custom of the Country" tells the story of Undine Spragg, a girl from a Midwestern town with unquenchable social aspirations. Though Undine is narcissistic, pampered, and incredibly selfish, she is also a fascinating, vibrant, and beguiling heroine whose marital initiation into New York high society from its trade-wealthy fringes is only the beginning of her relentless plans. Undine is never satisfied with...
7) The reef
Author
Lexile Measure
1090L
Summary
American lady in France discovers that the man she is about to marry has had an affair with her daughter's governess.
9) Old New York
Author
Publication Date
[1964, c1952]
Summary
Edith Wharton's Old New York (1924) is a masterful cycle of four novellas that vividly reconstruct the manners, morals, and hidden dramas of New York society across the nineteenth century. With her keen eye for detail and unflinching honesty, Wharton explores the rigid codes of class, wealth, and reputation that defined the city's elite, revealing the tensions between individual desire and social convention.
Each of the four stories-False Dawn (set...
11) Sanctuary
Author
Summary
The third of Wharton's published works, Sanctuary' is a generational tale of love, education, secrecy, blame, and moral responsibility. Setting the template for films such as 'Minority Report,' starring Tom Cruise, 'Sanctuary' begs the question of whether it is right to pre-empt and act upon moral crimes that are yet to happen. When Kate discovers that her fiancée hides a terrible secret, will she leave him or see the wedding through? A thought-provoking...
12) The buccaneers
Author
Summary
Edith Wharton's spellbinding final novel tells a story of love in the gilded age that crosses the boundaries of society—now an original series on AppleTV+!
“Brave, lively, engaging...a fairy-tale novel, miraculouly returned to life.”—The New York Times Book Review
Set in the 1870s, the same period as Wharton's The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers is about five wealthy American girls...
“Brave, lively, engaging...a fairy-tale novel, miraculouly returned to life.”—The New York Times Book Review
Set in the 1870s, the same period as Wharton's The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers is about five wealthy American girls...
