Search results for ""author edith wharton""

'They lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.' Edith Wharton's most famous novel, written immediately after the end of the First World War, is a brilliantly realized anatomy of New York society in the 1870s, the world in which she grew up, and from which she spent her life escaping. Newland Archer, Wharton's protagonist, charming, tactful, enlightened, is a thorough product of this society; he accepts its standards and abides by its rules but he also recognizes its limitations. His engagement to the impeccable May Welland assures him of a safe and conventional future, until the arrival of May's cousin Ellen Olenska puts all his plans in jeopardy. Independent, free-thinking, scandalously separated from her husband, Ellen forces Archer to question the values and assumptions of his narrow world. As their love for each other grows, Archer has to decide where his ultimate loyalty lies. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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`It was not so much his great height that marked him ... it was the careless powerful look that he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain.' Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel's powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most celebrated book. In its unyielding and shocking pessimism, its bleak demonstration of tragic waste, it is a masterpiece of psychological and emotional realism. In her introduction the distinguished critic Elaine Showalter discusses the background to the novel's composition and the reasons for its enduring success. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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Wharton's antiwar masterpiece, now once again available, probes the devastation of World War I on the home front. Interweaving her own experiences of the Great War with themes of parental and filial love, art and self-sacrifice, national loyalties and class privilege, Wharton tells an intimate and captivating story of war behind the lines.

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Set in the luxurious and constricting world of New York''s Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence tells the story of Newland Archer, a young man of high standing engaged to the beautiful but conventional May Welland. When Newland''s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, returns to New York after a scandalous divorce, he is captivated by her independent spirit and alluring charm. Torn between his duty to his family and his undeniable attraction to Ellen, Newland must make a choice that will determine the course of his life.Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, this razor-sharp tale of desire and betrayal remains a timeless classic in American literature. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Arcturus Classics series brings together high-quality paperback editions of classics works, presented with contemporary graphic cover designs. Together they make a wonderful collection which is perfect for any home library.

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Trapped in a loveless marriage and weighed down by poverty, Ethan Frome’s days are enlivened by the presence of Mattie, his ailing wife Zeena’s youthful and charming cousin, who provides help to the household. When Zeena realizes that her husband’s feelings for Mattie go beyond simple affection, and that they seem to be reciprocated, the scene is set for a confrontation that will lead to heartbreak, misery and tragedy. A marked contrast to the mordantly satirical novels of manners set among New York high society for which she is best known, this story set in rural Massachusetts is considered by many to be Edith Wharton’s highest achievement, and is unsurpassed as a study of forbidden love and thwarted desire.

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Stephen Glennard is in desperate need of money. So when he becomes aware of the potential value of a series of passionate love letters written to him by the recently deceased author Margaret Aubyn, he sells them and marries the beautiful Alexa Trent. However, his shame and guilt at building a new life on the betrayal of another’s love slowly begins to eat away at him, and Margaret’s memory has a power that can reach him from beyond the grave. The first of Edith Wharton’s works depicting life in “old New York”, The Touchstone is an acutely observed novella , and an exploration of the tension between self-serving opportunism and the desire to live a moral life.

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"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

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"The most consistent of all series in terms of language control, length, and quality of story." David R. Hill, Director of the Edinburgh Project on Extensive Reading.

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Three beloved novels by Edith Wharton, in a couture-inspired Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition designed by a fashion illustrator for Alexander McQueen. This edition celebrates the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton's birth in 2012.The House of Mirth: Nineteen year old Lily Bart is in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to gossip. Wharton charts the course of Lily's life, providing a wider picture of a society in transition; a changing New York where old manners, morals and family attitudes are being replaced by the view that an individual is an expendable commodity.The Custom of the Country: Mr and Mrs Spragg are hoping to forge an entrée into society and arrange a suitably ambitious match for their only daughter. Wharton's story of Undine Spragg affords us a detailed glimpse of the interior décor of upper-class America and its nouveau riche. Through a heroine who is as vain and spoiled as she is fascinating, Wharton conveys a vision of social behaviour that is both informed and disenchanted.The Age of Innocence: When the Countess Ellen Olenska flees Europe and her brutish husband, her rebellious independence stirs the educated sensitivity of Newland Archer, already engaged to the Countess's cousin May Welland. As the drama unfolds, Edith Wharton's sharp ironic wit and Jamesian mastery of form create a disturbingly accurate picture of men and women caught in a society that denies humanity while desperately defending "civilisation".

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The Penguin English Library Edition of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton'He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface'Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's vivacious cousin enters their household as a 'hired girl', Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent. In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio towards their tragic destinies.The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

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World-renowned cartoonist Seth returns with three new ghost stories for 2021. When Lady Jane Lynke unexpectedly inherits Bells, a beautiful country estate, she declares she’ll never leave the peaceful grounds and sets about making the house her home. But she hasn’t reckoned on the obstinate Mr Jones, the caretaker she’s told dislikes her changes, yet never seems able to be found.

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One of the titles in an exciting series of beloved, charming and spooky ghost stories, brought to life by legendary illustrator Seth. When Lady Jane Lynke unexpectedly inherits Bells, a beautiful country estate, she declares she'll never leave the peaceful grounds and sets about making the house her home. But she hasn't reckoned on the obstinate Mr Jones, the caretaker she's told dislikes her changes, yet never seems able to be found.

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Edith Wharton's satiric anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it both appalled and fascinated its first reviewers, and established her as a major novelist. The Saturday Review wrote that she had 'assembled as many detestable people as it is possible to pack between the covers of a six-hundred page novel', but concluded that the book was 'brilliantly written', and 'should be read as a parable'. It follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York from the midwest and determined to conquer high society. Glamorous, selfish, mercenary and manipulative, her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father's money. With her sights set on an advantageous marriage, Undine pursues her schemes in a world of shifting values, where triumph is swiftly followed by dissullusion. Wharton was recreating an environment she knew intimately, and Undine's education for social success is chronicled in meticulous detail. The novel superbly captures the world of post-Civil War America, as ruthless in its social ambitions as in its business and politics. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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A black comedy of manners about vast wealth and a woman who can define herself only through the perceptions of others. The beautiful Lily Bart lives among the nouveaux riches of New York City – people whose millions were made in railroads, shipping, land speculation and banking. In this morally and aesthetically bankrupt world, Lily, age twenty-nine, seeks a husband who can satisfy her cravings for endless admiration and all the trappings of wealth. But her quest comes to a scandalous end when she is accused of being the mistress of a wealthy man. Exiled from her familiar world of artificial conventions, Lily finds life impossible.

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Set against the frozen waste of a harsh New England winter, Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome is a tale of despair, forbidden emotions, and sexual tensions, published with an introduction and notes by Elizabeth Ammons in Penguin Classics.Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious, and hypochondriac wife, Zeenie. But when Zeenie's vivacious cousin enters their household as a 'hired girl', Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent. In one of American fiction's finest and most intense narratives, Edith Wharton moves this ill-starred trio toward their tragic destinies. Different in both tone and theme from Wharton's other works, Ethan Frome has become perhaps her most enduring and most widely read novel.Edith Wharton (1862-1937), born Edith Newbold Jones, was a member of a distinguished New York family said to be the basis for the idiom 'keeping up with the Joneses'. During her life she published more than forty volumes, including novels, stories, verse, essays, travel books and memoirs; for years she published poetry and short stories in magazines, but the book that made Wharton famous was The House of Mirth (1905), which established her both as a writer of distinction and popular appeal. In 1920, Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for literature with her novel The Age of Innocence.If you enjoyed Ethan Frome, you might like Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, also available in Penguin Classics.

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'Can't you see that I don't care what anybody says?' Charity Royall lives in the small New England village of North Dormer. Born among outcasts from the Mountain beyond, she is rescued by lawyer Royall and lives with him as his ward. Never allowed to forget her disreputable origins Charity despises North Dormer and rebels against the stifling dullness of the tight-knit community surrounding her. Her boring job in the local library is interrupted one day by the arrival of a young visiting architect, Lucius Harney, whose good looks and sophistication arouse her passionate nature. As their relationship grows, so too does Charity's conflict with her guardian; darker undercurrents start to come to the surface. Summer is often compared to Wharton's other New England story, Ethan Frome, and it shares the same intensity of feeling and repression. Wharton regarded it as one of her best works, and its compelling story of burgeoning sexuality and illicit desire has a strikingly modern and troubling ambiguity. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

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"Contexts" constructs the historical foundation for this very historical novel. Many documents are included on the "New York Four Hundred," elite social gatherings, archery (the sport for upper-crust daughters), as well as Wharton’s manuscript outlines, letters, and related writings. "Criticism" collects eleven American and British contemporary reviews and nine major essays on The Age of Innocence, including a groundbreaking piece on the two film adaptations of the novel. “A Chronology and Selected Bibliography” are also included.

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This Norton Critical Edition includes: • The 1905 book edition of the novel, complete with A. B. Wenzell’s eight original illustrations. • A preface and explanatory footnotes by Elizabeth Ammons. • An abundant selection of contextual material, including excerpts from Wharton’s letters, contemporary reviews, six drawings by Charles Dana Gibson, Thorstein Veblen on conspicuous consumption, Charlotte Perkins Gilman on women and economics, and various others writing about women’s place in society at the turn of the century. • Six modern critical views, considering issues of economics, race, materialism, body image, nature and feminism within the novel. • A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography.

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Edith Wharton's novels of manners seem to grow in stature as time passes. Here she draws a beautiful social climber, Undine Sprague, who is a monster of selfishness and honestly doesn't know it. Although the worlds she wants to conquer have vanished, Undine herself is amazingly recognizable. She marries well above herself twice and both times fails to recognize her husbands' strengths of character or the weakness of her own, and it is they, not she, who pay the price.

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This beautiful, giftable collection celebrates and explores both the beauty and the anguish of love through classic poems, stories, and letters from some of literature’s most beloved writers.Because it defines human existence, love is one of art’s favorite subjects. Timeless Love: Poems, Stories, and Letters celebrates the mysterious nature of love and passion by bringing together classic works written by beloved authors through the ages.Including stories, poems, and letters from Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barret Browning, John Keats, Edith Wharton, and many more, this collection explores how each love is singular—yet love itself is universal.The Timeless Love softcover edition offers: Poems from William Shakespeare, John Keats, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Wordsworth, Robert Burns, Christina Rossetti, Mary Weston Fordham, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Stories from Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, L. M. Montgomery, and the Brothers Grimm. Letters from Alexander Hamilton, John Keats, Robert Browning, and Elizabeth Barrett Hand-selected and presented in a lovely, gift-worthy package, Timeless Love will make a thoughtful gift for the reader in your life or the perfect addition to a collector’s shelf. Ideal for Valentine’s Day, anniversaries and birthdays, or any romantic gift-giving occasion.

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A unique anthology of short stories and poetry by feminist contemporaries of Virginia Woolf, who were writing about work, discrimination, war, relationships and love in the early part of the 20th Century. Includes works by English and American writers Zelda Fitzgerald, Charlotte Perkins Gillman, Radclyffe Hall, Katherine Mansfield, Alice Dunbar Nelson, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf, alongside their recently rediscovered 'sisters' from around the world. This book offers a diverse and international array of over 20 literary gems from women writers living in Bulgaria, Chile, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Palestine, Romania, Russia, Spain and Ukraine.

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The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the rigidly conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingénue, when May's cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle. The Countess brings with her an aura of European sophistication and a hint of scandal, having left her husband and claimed her independence. Her sorrowful eyes, her tragic worldliness and her air of unapproachability attract the sensitive Newland and, almost against their will, a passionate bond develops between them. But Archer's life has no place for passion and, with society on the side of May and all she stands for, he finds himself drawn into a bitter conflict between love and duty.

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'We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?'Newland Archer and May Welland are the perfect couple. He is a wealthy young lawyer and she is a lovely and sweet-natured girl. All seems set for success until the arrival of May's unconventional cousin Ellen Olenska, who returns from Europe without her husband and proceeds to shake up polite New York society. To Newland, she is a breath of fresh air and a free spirit, but the bond that develops between them throws his values into confusion and threatens his relationship with May.VINTAGE DECO: Nine blazing, daring novels to celebrate the 1920s - 100 years on.

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Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. The Age of Innocence (winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize), is a tale of desire and betrayal, set in the golden age of 1920s New York. It tells the story of Newland Archer, a rich lawyer from an aristocratic family, happily engaged to society beauty May Welland. The complex, social constructs of their lives are thrown into disarray, however, with the arrival of May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, into their gilded circle. Ellen, recently separated from her dissolute Polish count husband, is everything that May is not – carefree, unconventional, artistic, and Archer falls hopelessly in love with her. Caught between his passion for Ellen and his duty to May, Archer has to make a decision between the women that will determine the rest of their lives. The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

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Wharton's sly and delicious novel about the ambitious social ascent of Undine Spragg, with a foreword bySofia CoppolaConsidered by many to be her masterpiece, Edith Wharton's second full-length work is a scathing yet personal examination of the exploits and follies of the modern upper class. As she unfolds the journey of Undine Spragg from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of the America's interior and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating, and through the intricate plot of Undine's marriages and affairs, Wharton conveys a vision of a social class that is both supremely informed and supremely disenchanted.

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'The war went on; life went on; Paris went on.' In A Son at the Front, her only novel dealing with World War I, Edith Wharton offers a vivid portrait of American expatriate life in Paris, as well as a gripping portrayal of a complex modern family. The painter John Campton is divorced from the mother of his son, George, and although Julia's second husband, Anderson Brant, a wealthy banker, has been a devoted stepfather to George, Campton resents his presence in George's life. This family drama is ruptured by the outbreak of fighting, which requires George, born in France, to report for military service despite his parents' belief that he should be exempted. Reflecting Wharton's own experiences, A Son at the Front documents the shock of the outbreak of war, the early hope of a quick victory for the Allies, the terrible human cost of the war, and the relief when, belatedly, the United States enters the conflict. The novel's tone reflects the realities of life in Paris, and the profound disillusionment of the post-war period, standing as not only an important part of Wharton's oeuvre, but a landmark in the literature of the First World War.

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It is fully annotated for undergraduate readers. "Backgrounds and Contexts" includes a rich selection of materials, some previously unavailable, for the study of contemporary psychological, social, and economic issues, as well as Wharton's private correspondence and writings and biographical accounts of the author. Arranged under two headings, "Criticism" reveals Ethan Frome's impact as both a literary work and a social commentary. "Contemporary Reviews" consists of eight prominent assessments of Ethan Frome, including reviews from the New York Times Book Review, Outlook, The Nation, the Saturday Review, and those penned by Frederic Taber Cooper and Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant, among others. "Modern Criticism" (1956-1991) includes seven interpretations of the novella by Lionel Trilling, Elizabeth Ammons, Judith Fryer, Jean Frantz Blackall, Lev Raphael, Candace Waid, and Cynthia Griffin Wolff. A Chronology and a Selected Bibliography are also included.

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