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Edith Wharton
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Bio: Edith Wharton, a prolific writer best known as a novelist of manners whose fiction exposed the rigid mores of aristocratic society in a world that has all but vanished, was born Edith Newbold Jones in New York City on January 24, 1862. Both her parents belonged to long-established, socially prominent New York families. Her mother was the former Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander, and her father was George Frederic Jones. (It is said that the expression 'keeping up with the Joneses' referred to them.) She was privately educated at home and in Europe by governesses and tutors. 'I used to say that I had been taught only two things in my childhood: the modern languages and good manners,' she recalled in the compelling memoir A Backward Glance (1934). 'Now that I have lived to see both those branches of culture dispensed with, I perceive that there are worse systems of education.' Her first publication was Verses (1878), a book of poems privately printed in Newport when she was sixteen. In later life she brought out two other volumes of poetry, Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse (1909) and Twelve Poems (1926), but her verse never succeeded in conveying the emotion of her prose.

In 1885 Edith Jones married Bostonian Edward Robbins Wharton, whom Henry James dubbed 'cerebrally compromised Teddy,' and over the next decade the couple explored Europe while maintaining residences in New York and Newport. Wharton eventually turned to writing for a measure of fulfillment as she grew dissatisfied with the roles of wife and society matron. In collaboration with architect Ogden Codman she published The Decoration of Houses (1897), an influential work on architecture and interior design. Several of her early stories appeared in Scribner's Magazine. Three collections, The Greater Inclination (1899), Crucial Instances ( 1901), and The Descent of Man and Other Stories (1904), display an innate mastery of the short story, which she envisioned as 'a shaft driven straight into the heart of human experience.' Two novellas, The Touchstone (1900) and Sanctuary (1903), reveal a talent for psychological realism. Wharton's passion for Italy inspired a first novel, The Valley of Decision (1902 ), as well as Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904) and Italian Backgrounds (1905), a series of travel sketches. Her subsequent volumes of travel writing include A Motor-Flight Through France (1908) and In Morocco (1920).

The publication of The House of Mirth in 1905 marked Edith Wharton's coming of age as a writer. An immediate bestseller, this brilliant chronicle of upper-class New York society helped secure her reputation as America's foremost woman of letters. By then Wharton was living at 'The Mount,' a grand home she had built in Lenox, Massachusetts. Over the next years she wrote Madame de Treymes (1907), a novella of Jamesian inspiration about young innocents abroad; The Fruit of the Tree (1907), a novel of social reform; The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories (1908); and Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910), a collection of supernatural thrillers. Then in rapid succession Wharton produced three of her greatest novels: Ethan Frome (1911), a tragedy of relinquished passion set against the austere New England countryside; The Reef (1912), a richly nuanced story of unrequited love hailed by Henry James as 'a triumph of method'; and The Custom of the Country (1913), a fierce indictment of the materialism that ruled America in the so-called Gilded Age.

By the time Wharton divorced her husband in 1913 she had settled permanently in France.


1. Long [57579 words]Summer by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
2. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
3. Long [130372 words]House of Mirth by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
4. Long [63105 words]The Hermit and the Wild Woman by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
5. Long [83032 words]Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
6. Mid-Length [35488 words]Fighting France by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
7. Mid-Length [35746 words]Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
8. Long [70061 words]The Descent of Man and Other Stories by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
9. Mid-Length [30632 words]The Bunner Sisters by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
10. Short [11908 words]Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
  1. Long [130372 words]House of Mirth by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
2. Mid-Length [35746 words]Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
3. Long [102266 words]*The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
4. Mid-Length [26864 words]The Touchstone by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
5. Long [57579 words]Summer by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]
6. Mid-Length [26954 words]Sanctuary by Edith Wharton [Classic Literature]

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1 Summer [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Considered by some to be her finest work, Edith Wharton's Summer created a sensation when first published in 1917, as it was one of the first novels to deal honestly with a young woman's sexual awakening. Summer is the story of proud and independent Charity Royall, a child of mountain moonshiners adopted by a family in a poor New England town, who has a passionate love affair with Lucius Harney, an educated young man from the city. Wharton broke the conventions of woman's romantic fiction by mak... more info>> (Published: 1917)

Words: 57579 - Reading Time: 164-230 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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2 The House of Mirth [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Beautiful, intelligent, and hopelessly addicted to luxury, Lily Bart is the heroine of this Wharton masterpiece. But it is her very taste and moral sensibility that render her unfit for survival in this world.
Category: Classic Literature
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3 Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Poetry of Edith Wharton: "Artemis to Actaeon," Life," "Vesalius in Zante," "Margaret of Cortona," "A Torchbearer," "The Mortal Lease," "Experience," "Grief," "Chartres," "Two Backgrounds," "The Tomb of Ilaria Giunigi," "The One Grief," "The Eumenides," "Orpheus," "An Autumn Sunset," "Moonrise Over Tyringham," "All Souls," "All Saints," "The Old Pole Star," "A Grave," "Non Dolet!," "A Hunting-Song," "Survival," "Uses," "A Meeting." (Published: 1909)

Words: 11908 - Reading Time: 34-47 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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4 Ethan Frome [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  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. (Published: 1911)

Words: 35746 - Reading Time: 102-142 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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5 Ethan Frome [Secure Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome is 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 her Introduction, the distinguished critic Elaine Showalter discusses the background to the novel's composition and the reasons for its enduring success.
Category: Classic Literature
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6 Ethan Frome & Other Stories [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  On a bleak New England farm, a taciturn young man has resigned himself to a life of grim endurance. Bound by circumstance to a woman he cannot love, Ethan Frome is haunted by a past of lost possibilities until his wife's orphaned cousin, Mattie Silver, arrives and he is tempted to make one final, desperate effort to escape his fate. In language that is spare, passionate, and enduring, Edith Wharton tells this unforgettable story of two tragic lovers overwhelmed by the unrelenting forces of consc... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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7 Fighting France [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  As pertinent today as it was in World War I, the nonfiction travelogue Fighting France follows American expatriate Edith Wharton through France as she attempts to discover how a society of culture can prepare itself for that least cultured of activities: war. (Published: 1915)

Words: 35488 - Reading Time: 101-141 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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8 Glimpses of the Moon [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Set in the 1920s, Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, a couple with the right connections but not much in the way of funds. They devise a shrewd bargain: they'll marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas. As Susy explains, "We should really, in a way, help more than hamper each other. We both know the ropes so well; what one of us didn't see the other might--in the way of opportu... more info>> (Published: 1922)

Words: 83032 - Reading Time: 237-332 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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9 House of Mirth [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton's classic tale of social mores in early-20th-century New York focuses on the travails of Lily Bart, a ravishing young woman who lacks a fortune of her own and needs to find a wealthy husband in order to secure her position. Torn between her desire for freedom and the rigid conventions of upper-class society, Lily tragically misses her chance for real love with the intellectually refined attorney Lawrence Selden, the one man who could make her happy. (Published: 1905)

Words: 130372 - Reading Time: 372-521 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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10 In Morocco [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  A classic of travel writing, In Morocco is Edith Wharton's remarkable account of her journey to the country during World War I. With a characteristic sense of adventure, Wharton set out to explore Morocco and its people, recording her impressions and encounters. She traveled--by military jeep--to Rabat, Moulay Idriss, Fex and Marrakech, from the Atlantic coast to the high Atlas. Along the way she witnessed religious ceremonies and ritual dances, visited the opulent palaces of the Sultan and was ... more info>> (Published: 1920)

Words: 50625 - Reading Time: 144-202 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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11 Madame de Treymes [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Madame de Treymes an important, early Edith Wharton novel about the differences between American and European society, published the year she left the United States to take up permanent residency in France. (Published: 1907)

Words: 19258 - Reading Time: 55-77 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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12 Sanctuary [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Originally published by Scribners in 1903, this is the story of Kate Orme, who marries a man of weak moral character. When they have a child, she fears that the sins of the father will be the sins of their son. Kate dedicates herself to instilling morality in the boy as he grows, especially after her husband dies. This is a typical Wharton examination of upper-crust society strewn with flaws. (Published: 1903)

Words: 26954 - Reading Time: 77-107 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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13 Summer [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Considered by some to be her finest work, Edith Wharton's Summer created a sensation when first published in 1917, as it was one of the first novels to deal honestly with a young woman's sexual awakening. Summer is the story of Charity Royall, a child of mountain moonshiners adopted by a family in a poor New England town, who has a passionate love affair with Lucius Harney, an educated man from the city. Wharton broke the conventions of women's romantic fiction by making Charity a thoroughly ind... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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Cost After Rebate:  $4.70     $4.00
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14 Tales of Men and Ghosts [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Tales of Men and Ghosts is a collection of ten Edith Wharton short stories: "The Bolted Door," "His Father's Son," "The Daunt Diana," "The Debt," "Full Circle," "The Legend," "The Eyes," "The Blond Beast," "Afterward," and "The Letters." (Published: 1910)

Words: 95214 - Reading Time: 272-380 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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15 Tales of Men and Ghosts [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was one of the most remarkable women of her time, and her immense commercial and critical success--most notably with her novel "The Age of Innocence" (1920), which won a Pulitzer Prize--have long overshadowed her small but distinguished body of supernatural fiction. Some of her finest fantastic and detective work (which oft times overlap) was first collected in 1909 in "Tales of Men and Ghosts." The psychological horror is as important as the literal one here, and subtl... more info>> (Published: 2002)

Words: 95554 - Reading Time: 273-382 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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16 The Age of Innocence [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Deeply moving study of the tyrannical and rigid requirements of New York high society in the late 19th century and the effect of those strictures on the lives of three people. Vividly characterized drama of affection thwarted by a man's sense of honor, family, and societal pressures. A long-time favorite with readers and critics alike. (Published: 1920)

Words: 102266 - Reading Time: 292-409 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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17 The Age of Innocence [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)/Adobe]
by Edith Wharton, Louis Auchincloss
  Newland Archer saw little to envy in the marriages of his friends, yet he prided himself that in May Welland he had found the companion of his needs--tender and impressionable, with equal purity of mind and manners. The engagement was announced discreetly, but all of New York society was soon privy to this most perfect match, a union of families and circumstances cemented by affection. Enter Countess Olenska, a woman of quick wit sharpened by experience, not afraid to flout convention and determ... more info>> (Published: 1920)

Words: 150000 - Reading Time: 428-600 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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18 The Age of Innocence [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is an elegant, masterful portrait of desire and betrayal in old New York. With vivid power, Wharton evokes a time of gaslit streets, formal dances held in the ballrooms of stately brownstones, and society people "who dreaded scandal more than disease." This is Newland Archer's world as he prepares to many the docile May Welland. Then, suddenly, the mysterious, intensely nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a long a... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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19 The Age of Innocence [Secure Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Deeply moving study of the tyrannical and rigid requirements of New York high society in the late 19th century and the effect of those strictures on the lives of three people.
Category: Classic Literature
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20 The Age of Innocence [Secure Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York. (Published: 2005)
Category: Classic Literature
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21 The Age of Innocence [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Newland Archer saw little to envy in the marriages of his friends, yet he prided himself that in May Welland he had found the companion of his needs--tender and impressionable, with equal purity of mind and manners. The engagement was announced discreetly, but all of New York society was soon privy to this most perfect match, a union of families and circumstances cemented by affection. Enter Countess Olenska, a woman of quick wit sharpened by experience, not afraid to flout convention and determ... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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22 The Buccaneers [Secure Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Set in the 1870s, the same period as Wharton's The Age of Innocence, The Buccaneers is about five wealthy American girls denied entry into New York Society because their parents' money is too new. At the suggestion of their clever governess, the girls sail to London, where they marry lords, earls, and dukes who find their beauty charming--and their wealth extremely useful.After Wharton's death in 1937, The Christian Science Monitor said, "If it could have been completed, The Buccaneers would dou... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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23 The Bunner Sisters [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  In a shabby neighborhood in New York City, the two Bunner sisters, Ann Eliza the elder, and Evelina the younger, keep a small shop selling artificial flowers and small handsewn articles to Stuyvesant Square's "female population." Ann Eliza gives Evelina a clock for her birthday. The clock leads the sisters to become involved with Herbert Ramy, owner of "the queerest little store you ever laid eyes on." Soon Ramy is a regular guest of the Bunner sisters, who realize that their "treadmill routine,... more info>> (Published: 1892)

Words: 30632 - Reading Time: 87-122 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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24 The Custom of the Country [Secure Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/eReader (recommended)]
by Edith Wharton
  Wharton's glittering satire of the newly affluent in Old New YorkConsidered 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 story of Undine Spragg, from New York to Europe, Wharton affords us a detailed glimpse of what might be called the interior décor of this America and its nouveau riche fringes. Through a heroine who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she i... more info>>
Category: Classic Literature
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25 The Custom of the Country [MultiFormat]
by Edith Wharton
  Highly acclaimed at its publication in 1913, The Custom of the Country is a cutting commentary on America's nouveaux riches, their upward-yearning aspirations and their eventual downfalls. Through her heroine, the beautiful and ruthless Undine Spragg, a spoiled heiress who looks to her next materialistic triumph as her latest conquest throws himself at her feet, Edith Wharton presents a startling, satiric vision of social behavior in all its greedy glory. As Undine moves from America's heartland... more info>> (Published: 1913)

Words: 139061 - Reading Time: 397-556 min.
Category: Classic Literature
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