{"title":"Edith Wharton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-age-of-innocence","title":"The Age of Innocence","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published in 1920, Edith Wharton’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e returns to the ceremonious world of New York’s upper class in the 1870s, where family reputation and social convention govern even the most intimate decisions. Newland Archer, a cultivated young lawyer, is engaged to the beautiful and dutiful May Welland when May’s cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, returns from Europe, separated from her husband and unwilling to submit quietly to society’s judgement. Drawn to Ellen’s independence and the possibility of a less constrained life, Newland finds himself caught between desire and the obligations of the world that has shaped him. Wharton renders this conflict through dinners, opera boxes, family alliances and seemingly innocuous remarks, revealing the quiet force with which a society can police its own members.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBeneath its polished manners, the novel is a searching study of repression, complicity and the private sacrifices demanded by respectability. Wharton’s irony is never merely decorative: it exposes the distance between what her characters feel and what they can permit themselves to acknowledge, giving ordinary social rituals the tension of a psychological drama. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e secured Wharton’s place among the foremost American novelists of her generation. Its portrait of a vanished social order is also an enduring meditation on the lives people might have lived, and on how convention can become so familiar that it is mistaken for innocence.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the book\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of the same folded paper.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— Edith Wharton, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Wharton makes her characters’ inner lives the scenes of turbulent psychic action that is barely visible to the world.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— Sam Jordison, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardner's EU","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64027468464458,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"the-house-of-mirth","title":"The House of Mirth","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published in 1905, Edith Wharton’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe House of Mirth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e follows Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent young woman navigating the glittering but unforgiving world of New York high society at the turn of the twentieth century. Without the fortune required to sustain her position, Lily must rely on her charm and social connections to secure a wealthy marriage, yet her longing for independence and her instinctive scruples repeatedly undermine her prospects. Her complicated relationship with the cultivated lawyer Lawrence Selden offers a glimpse of a freer existence, while the calculating social circle around her treats beauty, reputation and affection as commodities to be exchanged. As Lily’s circumstances deteriorate, Wharton exposes the cruelty of a society that prizes women for their appearance while denying them the means to survive beyond it.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eElegant in style and devastating in its implications, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe House of Mirth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is both a tragedy of individual ambition and a merciless portrait of the social codes governing America’s Gilded Age. Wharton’s finely controlled irony reveals how privilege protects the powerful while turning a woman’s smallest misstep into a public indictment. The novel established her as one of the great American realists, combining the social precision of Henry James with a distinctive understanding of the economic and emotional constraints imposed on women. More than a period portrait, it remains a profound study of exclusion, self-deception and the human cost of a world in which a person’s worth is measured by what they can offer society.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the book\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“A woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— Edith Wharton, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe House of Mirth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe House of Mirth\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Edith Wharton’s novel is mercilessly frank in its description of 19th-century New York society.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— Gemma Kappala-Ramsamy, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardner's EU","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64027493368138,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"ethan-frome","title":"Ethan Frome","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFirst published in 1911, Edith Wharton’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEthan Frome\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is a stark, haunting tale of thwarted desire and lives narrowed by circumstance, set amid the snowbound farms and unforgiving winters of rural Massachusetts. Its story emerges through an unnamed narrator’s attempts to understand Ethan Frome, a taciturn, physically damaged man whose past conceals a desperate love for Mattie Silver, the young cousin of his ailing wife, Zeena. In the austere world of Starkfield, poverty, duty and social isolation press upon every choice, turning private longing into a tragedy of almost unbearable inevitability.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMore restrained in scope than Wharton’s great novels of New York society, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEthan Frome\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e reveals the same incisive understanding of the forces that govern human lives, here rendered through a landscape as cold and constricted as the characters’ circumstances. Its spare prose, intricate framing narrative and terrible emotional intensity give the novella the force of a modern tragedy, while its attention to rural poverty and women’s limited choices complicates any simple reading of its central love story. Among Wharton’s most enduring works, it remains a masterpiece of atmosphere, moral ambiguity and the quiet devastation of lives denied their possibilities.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFrom the book\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e“She had the look of one who has been living in a world of dreams and has now awakened to the cold reality.”\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEdith \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWharton,\u003cem\u003e \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eEthan Frome\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEthan Frome\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Not since Hawthorne has a novelist built on the New England soil a tragedy of such elevation of mood as this.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e— Carl Van Doren, quoted in \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cspan\u003eEncyclopedia.com\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardner's EU","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64027570078026,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/thelamppostparis.com\/collections\/edith-wharton.oembed","provider":"The Lamp-Post Library \u0026 Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}