Edith Wharton

Clyde Fitch

The House of Mirth, novel turned drama, provides an interesting case history of a novelist's attempt to adapt a popular book for the theater. Complete notes provide production details, reviews, postmortems, and other useful information.

The Play of the Novel

The House of Mirth

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She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate

Why do we call all our generous ideas illusions, and the mean ones truths?

As the pain that can be told is but half a pain, so the pity that questions has little healing in its touch. What Lily craved was the darkness made by enfolding arms, the silence which is not solitude but compassion holding its breath

There is someone I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you- we are sure to see each other again - but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you- I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you."

I have tried hard but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was no use anywhere else. What can one do when one finds out that one only fits into one hole? One must go back to it or be thrown out into the rubbish heap - and you don't know what it's like in the rubbish heap!

No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity

Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement 

Nina Bawden

First published in 1905, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities. Lily Bart, beautiful, witty and sophisticated, is accepted by 'old money' and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears thirty, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her in the luxury she has come to expect. Whilst many have sought her, something - fastidiousness or integrity- prevents her from making a 'suitable' match.

D D D 

this book took me fooooooorever to finish. Hard to hold my attention. Lily Bart is one stubborn broad.

Katie

This book is beautiful and So sad..... how easily you can misstep and be misunderstood and how quickly life can get away from you!

The House of Mirth is a novel by Edith Wharton about a woman who is destroyed by the society that created her. "The House of Mirth" is the story of Lily Bart, a high-society, but penniless, young woman in turn-of-the-century New York. This Xist Classics edition has been professionally formatted for e-readers with a linked table of contents. This eBook also contains a bonus book club leadership guide and discussion questions. We hope you’ll share this book with your friends, neighbors and colleagues and can’t wait to hear what you have to say about it. Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

Laura Mauler

I liked the book a lot but the final chapters really dragged, to the point where I wondered if she got paid by the word.

Andrew John Kinney

Read it as a teenager - should probably revisit.

The house of mirth

Trish

"Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury. It was the background she required, the only climate she could breathe in."

What a long, winding and tragic journey I've just been through with dear Lily Bart. Could Edith Wharton be the Queen of hopeless love affairs? I believe so. 

House of Mirth is the third novel I've read by Edith Wharton and it ranks as such, behind Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence. Mirth is the longest of the three novels and has the largest cast of characters, all of whom play significant roles in shaping the future of our protagonist Lily Bart. Frankly, I think Wharton may have introduced a few too many characters into the mix for my liking. With all the Mr.'s and Mrs.'s in society, I had a hard time remembering who was wooing who and who was *cheating on their spouses* with whom. Granted, I did read this book during the course of two to three weeks and was very busy and stressed making major life decisions, so maybe I was a little distracted - but still, lots of characters to keep track of.

My favorite character of the society has to be Lawrence Selden. I mean, Wharton just writes the best male characters, doesn't she? First Newland Archer, now Selden. I love that Selden has a moral compass. He's grounded and honest and unwilling to sacrifice his values for anything - money, reputation, popularity, even love. He's everything that Lily Bart admires, respects, and wishes she could be. And an honorable mention must go out to Simon Rosedale. I liked his "started from the bottom, now I'm here" attitude about things because he was not simply another man born into wealth, but he earned it and therefore knew its true value and capability of changing one's life. 

Overall, another excellent, heart aching novel by Edith Wharton. I look forward to whatever work I next encounter by her - she has yet to disappoint me.

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Fran Lewis

It was an interesting story about how appearance was everything in turn of the century.

Janice Hopper

Don't read this book when you're already sad. It will make you more sad.

Also, it's about a bunch of rich people and their hangers-on. Fuck those guys.

Bob Simone

SPOILER ALERT: My favorite part is at the end when the guy (name?) walks into the apartment and is like, "Omg, what was I thinking? Looks like I dodged a bullet there." Most of the plot centers around the main woman's struggle with cultural displacement. This is a horrible review, I am really bad at writing reviews. NEXT> Also, I love when characters make life and love decisions based on infatuation and come to regret them. Like Lydgate does in middlemarch. Haha, poor lydgate.

Amy Maddess

I had to really push myself to finish this. The pace is very slow, in both language use and lack of advancement in the plot as the chapters drag on. I had put it down for such frequent and long breaks that I had to use Coles Notes to keep up with what had (and hadn't at all) happened in the story. But- I finished! I think that if I had of really been in the mood to sink my teeth into this I would have enjoyed it much more; I was still emotionally moved by the ending, even though I probably didn't understand the full significance of it. Overall, a good but difficult classic - similar to most others.

Random side note of interest: I was reading "Lipstick Jungle" before reading this (have yet to finish it because I lost my hard copy in a move and have been unable to locate a digital copy on Scribd or LIbby) and have noticed that there are a great number of parallels between the two books. Both novels are set on FIfth Avenue in New York and thus the characters within are concerned with wealth, status, and society. Both novels follow the trajectory of a relationship that should exist because of pure love, but fails to come to fruition because of the individual's place in society. Both novels play with gender norms, especially surrrounding the acquisition of wealth and status, and both seek to prove that women can achieve the ladder without neccessity of adhering to the former. Both novels follow the growth of a main character who is limited by her misunderstandings but who does morally mean well. Both novels also have a main character with the name Selden! 

Coincedence? I think not.

Kimberly

This was surprisingly wonderful. A tragedy with a hint of romance about the American dream and society expectations. My first Edith Wharton and not my last one.

Jennifer Egan

House of Mirth

Prashant Prasad

The House of Mirth (1905), Edith Wharton, is a novel about New York socialite Lily Bart attempting to secure a husband and a place in rich society. It is one of the first novels of manners in American literature.

The House of Mirth (Annotated)

Silvia Morgantini

It's called "The House of Mirth", yet this is one of the saddest novels I have ever read. I felt in turn sorry for and frustrated by Lily, who reminded me a bit of Madame Bovary: her love for all things luxurious, the desperation in wanting to keep on living on her own terms, her at times irritating indecisiveness, and society's utter disregard for everything and anyone that doesn't conform to its stifling rules.
Three stars, but only because it made me really really sad.

Laura Leila Marta

Daryl Houston

I found the portrayal of what life was like for women of Lily's type fascinating and eye-opening but on the whole thought the book was pretty slow and undistinguished on the whole in terms of prose style. At times especially during the middle portion of the book, it was a bit of a slog. At the time of its publication early in the 20th century, it was serialized, and I'll bet it was a more compelling read when the chapters were dribbled out one at a time over many months.

A rating of 2 stars seems a bit stingy for how I felt about the book, but a rating of 3 feels too generous.

Tara King

Read this a second time, after reading it in college

The House of Mirth (Wordsworth Classics) (Wordsworth Classics)

Clapton Jonsson

I was impressed by how effortless the prose seems, and how well-structured the narrative is to allow for such a flow. There are few narrative “pauses” to provide the reader with pieces of background information or to introduce new characters; those parts are instead elegantly slipped into the narrative, mostly from the perspective of Lily Bart, like an unbroken thread. A stream, not of consciousness, but of… cleverly formulated paragraphs relating Lily Bart’s thought process. Although you know that Wharton probably labored intensively with the wording, it felt like she had sat down and written it all in one go. The impressive result comes off as less contrived than, say, the impressive results of Henry James or Fitzgerald.

I also liked how the story never gave in to my predictions about how it might develop. Wharton in some parts introduces scenes whose seeds could have grown into a soaplike intrigue, but the story rarely took the direction I imagined. I became emotionally engaged in Lily’s struggles and at some point I tried to discard her as a silly character – condemning herself to her destiny and with only herself to blame – to be able to detach myself from her and the emotions the book stirred. But trying to write Lily off as such was only to deceive myself, because I did care about her, and the story, enough to crave more.

Much of that craving was due to Wharton’s wonderful writing, already mentioned above, with sentences such as,


"It seemed to him necessary, at that moment, to proclaim, by some habitual gesture of this sort, his recovered hold on the actual: he had an almost puerile wish to let his companion see that, their flight over, he had landed on his feet."


The quote might not seem “all that” on its own, but in a book full of them it represents not a salient line to be found here and there, but the character of the entire book – a pure joy to read.

The House of Mirth The Play of the Novel

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