Edith Wharton

Collects "Ethan Frome" and four short stories: "The Pretext," "Afterword," "The Legend," and "Xingu."

And Selected Stories

Ethan Frome

brie

starkfield? more like bleakfield. this is the perfect winter read if you’re looking for something depressing and heartbreaking, which i was. 

all i know is that i want to give ethan frome the biggest hug ever because how can one be this unlucky?! he really deserves all the hugs and unending sleigh rides with mattie and that’s the ending i will be leaving this book with.

britt

i had to read this for school and if the descriptions hadn't been so stunning, this would have been a 1 star. because aside from the imagery and the few times this book tugged at my heartstrings i kinda hated it. the last chapter was truly the best part of this book. i don't think i'll ever forget how wharton wrote that ethan wanted to talk about the way he loves mattie but never learned how to express love.

authoritative text, backgrounds and contexts, criticism

désirée

this is like wow i have a crush!!!! except…

Barbara Williford

I have only recently discovered Edith Wharton and I have thoroughly enjoyed the books I have read written by her. This one got off to a slow start and I wasn’t sure about it but soon found myself not wanting to put it down. Such a sad state of existence for poor Ethan. He’s a character you want to dislike because of his cheating heart but can’t help but feel sorry for him. This is a tragic love story that leaves everyone in bitterness in the end.

Perhaps the best-known and most popular of Edith Wharton's novels, Ethan Frome is widely considered her masterpiece. Set against a bleak New England background, the novel tells of Frome, his ailing wife Zeena and her companion Mattie Silver, superbly delineating the characters of each as they are drawn relentlessly into a deep-rooted domestic struggle.

Burdened by poverty and spiritually dulled by a loveless marriage to an older woman, Frome is emotionally stirred by the arrival of a youthful cousin who is employed as household help. Mattie's presence not only brightens a gloomy house but stirs long-dormant feelings in Ethan. Their growing love for one another, discovered by an embittered wife, presages an ending to theis grim tale that is both shocking and savagely ironic.
(back cover)

Dave | Storyphoria

Ethan Frome presents a story in which there are no hero’s, no villains. Only people trapped in a miserable situation with plenty of despair, darkness, and depression to go around. It’s a grim picture of life for our three main characters, a brutal slice of life that is set against a truly beautiful depiction of a punishing winter in the north.

If you enjoy a sad story that is driven by despair and darkness, a romance novel in the classic literature format, and a story that will leave you looking at your own marriage or relationships and have you feeling thankful you have it so good, then I highly recommend Ethan Frome.

Otherwise, much like for me, this book won’t have much to offer you aside from some beautiful prose about the bleakness of winter from Edith Wharton. That prose is the only thing keeping this from being 2 stars to be honest. This one just wasn’t for me, as the romance genre isn’t really something I enjoy most of the time(though this is almost more of an anti-romance). If you are on a quest to work through the classics, then this is a nice short one to check off your list, but as a story… well… it didn’t do it for me.

Siya S

★★ 2 Stars 

Ummm wait, but what? 



I mean the writing was great, but the story is like a Gatling gun of miseries that by the end I felt depressingly wounded. It portrays frustration and despair in ways that I did not enjoy (like, things got worse, nothing got better, and all hopes died at the end). 

Everyone is horrible in their own ways like, Ethan Frome the protagonist was actually an indecisive coward who couldn't leave his wife, while at the same time went full-on crazy about Mattie. Zeena was horrid and unlikable as hell but was that a good enough of a reason to be two-timed that way by her husband? In her own friggin house? With her own friggin cousin? 

And Mattie was, well, I feel sorry for her. She was taken advantage of by the sad man of the house and beaten down by the bitterness of the missus of the same house. She's a sweet girl, but it's not like I'm a big fan of her terrible decisions throughout this book.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to read this at school. Everything about this story is awful, especially if you had a GPA at stakes.

Jude Moon

In the fictional New England town of Starkfield, an unnamed narrator is forced to stay at the home of Ethan Frome during a winter storm. He relates his encounter with Frome, "the most striking figure in Starkfield, he was but the ruin of a man, with a careless powerful look - in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain". When the beautiful cousin of Frome's bitter wife comes to help with housekeeping, Frome's attraction to her does not go unnoticed.Edith Wharton is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author.

Janice Hopper

Reread for Victorian/Edwardian book club.
In 2022, I read it and think "Poverty destroys peoples' souls." Also, "Hell is other people."

Listened to a Librivox recording again.

_____________________________________________
I have a vague memory of reading this when I was in high school. It had stuck in my mind as being dramatic, but that's pretty much all I remembered about it.

And wow, what a devastating story. Poverty, several horribly constrained lives, the chance of love and loss of it - wow. Broken bodies, broken lives, broken hearts.

This, along with the Algernon Blackwood story, are the first couple of entries into my year of adding classics to my reading list. This should be fun.

I listened to a Librivox recording and followed along with a Project Gutenberg text version, just because.

Omar AlHashmi

What is this. I found this on a list of great books under 200 pages. Which I got a lot of other good recommendations from. But this one was just, nothing. 
The writing was good I guess. Would not recommend.

** spoiler alert **
           I'll be concise: sledding and suicide

Ana V. 

Ethan Frome portraits relationships in a very dark but interesting manner. The bitterness of the wife and the loss of cheerfulness of the young girl after the tragedy mark this story. He is between their worlds or love, resignation and resentment.

Jeff Brown 

4.5 stars! Edith Wharton is THE STAR of the story. To be able introduce a deformed man, go back in time to show this man as a young but desperate husband, who shares his home with an older bitter shrew of a wife, and her young relative, a (seemingly) naive young maiden who Ethan falls for — and wrap this up in stunning story in much less than 200 pages was a skillful act. A must read — and maybe a rare re-read for me!

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.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/292854/ethan-frome-by-edith-wharton/9780142437803/

Bailey Lagarde

The tale of Ethan Frome is not an interesting tale. Sadly, it is only a dull Romeo and Juliet.

Isa s

Ethan Frome has to struggle to make a living of his farm. In addition to this he also has to take care of a wife who doesn’t have a pleasant character and needs constant care because of an illness. But then his wife’s cousin arrives and his live seems to take a better turn.

This is a really sad story that made me cry in the end. The sad thing about it wasn’t that the characters were having a hard time and suffering emotionally, but the fact that it was so real. These things happen and somehow the author conveyed this without many words (the books is relatively short) but very impressively. A book very recommendable for all who look for a short read that reaches to an emotional level. People who expect a book to always be funny and make them laugh should probably choose another book.

A quick note on my edition: I listened to the audiobook narrated by Scott Brick. I already knew him from former narrations (especially those written by Orson Scott Card) and really liked him them. This time, although he didn’t do a bad job as such, I found it rather difficult to focus on his narration, so a bit of the beginning escaped me. I might have to reasses Scott Brick as a narrator. Perhaps his voice only works well in conjunction with others (the other books he narrated were multi-narrator productions).

Karin 

Jeni Enjaian

I did not enjoy this book. However, my lack of enjoyment was much different than the lack I just wrote about in my review of "The Good Soldier" by Ford Maddox Ford.
The primary reason that I did not enjoy this book was the incredibly depressing nature of the primary story, "Ethan Frome," and the morbid slant of the other stories included in the collection.
Wharton created a fluid narrative free of confusion that admirably tugged at the reader's heartstrings. That much is true about "Ethan Frome." I cannot say the same about the other short stories in the collection. I continue to not be a fan of short stories, especially when the author dives into the story with not attempt at backstory. The lack of reference to anything else leaves the stories like hanging chads.
This is definitely a story ("Ethan Frome") that should be read by all those who wish to be proficient in the classics. Other than that, I have no inclination to recommend this book and a distinct disinclination to recommend the other short stories.

Nikki Sojkowski

What I think at page 49:
When I first picked up this book I thought it would be kind of like to kill a mockingbird where Jem and Scout were discovering about the mysterious Boo and he turned out to be a nice guy. Boy was I wrong. 10 pages in it switches from the new guys perspective to Young Ethan Frome's perspective. He loves his ill wife's cousin! He was HAPPY his wife left town to go see a doctor because then he could be alone with Mattie! Ethan disgusts me. Zeens being sick means that she needs him more, yet all he can concentrate on is Mattia and finishing everything else so that he has more time with her.

Can't be with the one you love because of a nasty ill wife? Clearly the solution is to kill yourself and the girl so that you'll never have to separate! Except when that fails you'll need to have your sickly wife take care of you both. This was such a pointless book. How is this a 'masterpiece'?!? Man falls in love even though he's already MARRIED, girl loves him back, they fail an attempted suicide, ill wife takes care of the both. What kind of story is that?!?

Christine Liu

Ethan Frome is an interesting book — not in terms of the contents of its story, which actually concern quite mundane scenes of rural life for the most part, but in that it doesn't go anywhere and its protagonist doesn't achieve anything.

The story is framed from the point of view of an unnamed visitor to Starkfield, a small town in the Berkshires. He becomes acquainted with the titular character, whom he describes as "a ruin of a man" and hears from other residents of the town that he was involved in some kind of accident that has left him with a limp.

Gradually, we learn Ethan's full story. He had once entertained ideas of higher education before being called to the family farm to care for an ailing mother. After his mother's death, he stays on to care for a chronically sickly and humorless wife, and his life remains more or less stagnant until his wife's young and beautiful cousin Mattie comes to live with them.

I don't want to reveal the ending for anyone who hasn't read this, but when the narrative catches up to the narrator's present, the reason for Ethan's becoming the "ruin" he is becomes starkly clear.

This grim, depressing story set in the midst of a bleak winter is a departure from Wharton's usual fare. There are no ballrooms, no fashionable gatherings, no wealthy Americans abroad. But it is a quintessentially Whartonesque tale of people being trapped in lives and circumstances that they cannot control.

A marked departure from Edith Wharton's usual ironic contemplation of the fashionable New York society to which she herself belonged, Ethan Frome is a sharply etched portrait of the simple inhabitants of a nineteenth-century New England village. The protagonist, Ethan Frome, is a man tormented by passionate love for his ailing wife's young cousin. trapped by the bonds of marriage and the fear of public condemnation, he is ultimately destroyed by that which offers him the greatest chance at happiness.

Like The House of Mirth and many of Edith Wharton's other novels, Ethan Frome centers on the power of local convention to smother the growth of the individual. Written with stark simplicity, this powerful and tragic novel has long been considered one of Wharton's greatest works.

(back cover)

Ethan Frome And Selected Stories

Reviews