The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Book Cover for: Old New York, Edith Wharton

Old New York

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton made the world of Old New York her own, the wealthy high society so powerfully depicted in these three elegantly ironic novels. Revolving around the marriage question, they explore the dilemma of women and men held within the rigid bounds of social convention. Thus in The House of Mirth, the novel that first brought Edith Wharton to fame, the complex, poignant heroine Lily Bart must either break away and find a more meaningful existence, or become a part of the superficial values of the nouveaux riches; in The Custom of the Country, the energetic and ambitious Undine Spragg works her way to wealth anti power through a succession of marriages; while Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence is caught in an agony of indecision: whether he should choose the duty of a socially approved marriage, or the love of a woman frowned upon by 'decent' society.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Scribner Book Company
  • Publish Date: Mar 1st, 1995
  • Pages: 320
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.98in - 5.44in - 0.72in - 0.60lb
  • EAN: 9780020383147
  • Categories: ClassicsCity LifeWomen

About the Author

Wharton, Edith: - Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was an American novelist--the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921--as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York's elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

Praise for this book

Gore Vidal

There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as "major" -- and Edith Wharton is one.