Ready Reference Treatise: The House of Mirth

By Raja Sharma

“The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton was first published in 1905. The book tells the story of Lily Bart. She is a well-born woman, but she is rendered without any money in the high society of New York City.

She was born in a rich family and brought up well. She was educated to become wife of a wealthy man. Unfortunately, she remains an unmarried woman who is deeply in debts and an uncertain future. The society happens to have created and destroyed this woman with a respectable family background.

Ready Reference Treatise: The House of Mirth
Copyright
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Plot Overview
Chapter Three: Major Characters
Chapter Four: Complete Summary
Book One
Book Two
Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

• Language: English
• Publisher: Raja Sharma
• Release date: Feb 13, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310976834

Raja Sharma

Raja Sharma is a retired college lecturer.He has taught English Literature to University students for more than two decades.His students are scattered all over the world, and it is noticeable that he is in contact with more than ninety thousand of his students.

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Ready Reference Treatise: The House of Mirth

Copyright

Ready Reference Treatise: The House of Mirth

Raja Sharma

Copyright@2016 Raja Sharma

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Ready Reference Treatise: The House of Mirth

Copyright

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

Chapter Three: Major Characters

Chapter Four: Complete Summary

Book One

Book Two

Chapter Five: Critical Analysis

Chapter One: Introduction

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton was first published in 1905. The book tells the story of Lily Bart. She is a well-born woman, but she is rendered without any money in the high society of New York City.

She was born in a rich family and brought up well. She was educated to become wife of a wealthy man. Unfortunately, she remains an unmarried woman who is deeply in debts and has an uncertain future. The society happens to have created and destroyed this woman with a respectable family background.

The House of Mirth is a novel of manners. It was the author’s fourth novel. The novel is a highly appropriate example of American literary naturalism.

Before going through the main story of the novel, it is important to know how wealth was used during the period that the novel is set in. It was the period of mass immigration. Several great houses had plenty of servants in New York. Labor was cheap and the people of high society generally had more than one or two servants in their luxurious houses.

The rich in New York had their yachts and motorcars. Some of the high families in the novel are based on the real families in the contemporary New York Society, and they can easily be compared.

In the novel, Van Osburghs are the most prominent and the richest family. This family suggests the Astors in Wharton’s day.

Since the society in the novel was in transition, the old wealth was giving way to new wealth. It was the time of the rise of Rosedale and decline of the Barts.

It was the first novel of manners to have emerged in American literature. While going through the book, during the first reading, it seems that Lily meets her doom because of her moral indiscretions, although small but important. This is not true because the real cause of her downfall is a simple lack of money.

Edith Wharton does not hesitate from presenting the truth about the ugly New York society as she saw it.

Chapter Two: Plot Overview

Lily Bart is the central character in the novel. As the story begins, she visits the apartment of Lawrence Selden. Lily happens to have romantic feelings for this man, but she does not think of him as her future husband because he is penniless.

She eventually decides that she must marry Percy Gryce. He happens to be a millionaire. He is a very timid person.

The close confidantes of Lily