Edith Wharton

“Wharton’s novels are not romances in the sense that Austen’s are, although both are set in a certain wealthy layer of society, and where the question is whether people are going to form happy relationships or not. They’re not comic romances; Wharton’s novels are more tragic than that. A lot of her books are set in 1870s New York, when some enormous fortunes have been made, where New York is still under construction, and the balance of power is shifting between old money and new. It’s an amazing novel. All of Wharton’s books are brilliant.” Read more...

Novels of the Rich and Wealthy

Andrew Hunter Murray, Comedians & Humorist

“So this is Wharton’s second novel, and was extremely – really remarkably – successful on publication. It’s a novel about the culture of the Gilded Age and, as far as I’m aware, one of the first major novels about New York society at that time. It traces the extraordinary descent – literally and figuratively – of a woman, Lily Bart, in the social scene. One of the things I love about The House of Mirth is the way the entire novel is encoded in the form of the opening scene, in which Lily ascends and descends a flight of stairs, and in doing so accidentally sets in motion the accumulation of rumor and misfortune that will eventually destroy her. The novel is constantly moving through these accretive images of exquisite beauty and wealth, which themselves then also complicate or degrade Lily’s social standing in the moment of their perception.” Read more...

The Best 20th-Century American Novels

David Hering,