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    The House of Mirth
    The House of Mirth
    The House of Mirth
    Ebook458 pages7 hours

    The House of Mirth

    By Edith Wharton

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    The classic tale of a young woman’s struggle for love and money from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence.
     
    Raised among New York’s high society, Lily Bart is beautiful, charming, and entirely without means. Determined to maintain the extravagant lifestyle to which she is accustomed, Lily embarks on a mission to marry a wealthy man who can secure her station. However, the businesslike proposals from her many suitors remain fruitless, and her thoughts keep returning to the one man she truly loves. Bedeviled by debt, betrayal, and vicious gossip, she is forced to confront the tragic cruelty just beneath the surface of the Gilded Age.
     
    First appearing in Scribner’s Magazine as a monthly serial, House of Mirth was a runaway bestseller upon its release as a full-length novel in 1905. Hailed as “a fireworks display of brilliantly sardonic social satire deepened by a story of thwarted love” by the Wall Street Journal, it was the first popular and critical success for Edith Wharton, who went on to become the first female author to win the Pulitzer Prize. Since its initial publication, House of Mirth has been adapted into two feature films and continues to captivate modern readers.
     
    This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateDec 13, 2016
    ISBN9781504042314
    Author

    Edith Wharton

    Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.

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    Reviews for The House of Mirth

    4/5

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    • 3/5
      Interesting from a historical perspective and at moments still contains relevant observations about the shallow and materialistic lives of wealthy Americans. The social manners and high sentimentality might be dull for most contemporary readers, but it still retains value.
    • 3/5
      I don't love anything that smells too much like Victorian literature. This was pretty close, but I enjoyed the inversion of the tale- how the young woman falls from social prominence, overplays her hand, and then chooses to live with the consequences. It's not tragedy in the classical sense, but Lily is a tragic character. Her combination of determination and lack of self-awareness keep the engine of the novel running.
    • 5/5
      My first Wharton, and I can see why so many people love her. The writing is excellent, the social commentary is strong, and the female characters especially in this book feel authentic. I found myself equal parts annoyed by and enamored of Lily. Her movements within ‘society’ as an independent woman, and her fall from that society, make for a compelling story. Lily Bart will stay with me for a long time. So many feels.
    • 1/5
      Depressing.
    • 5/5
      Materialistic NY society in the fin de siecle literally crushes Lily Bart to death under the weight of its code. There is no possibility for a young single woman to have a life of her own, an honorable occupation, or a visible means of support.She exists only as a marital prospect, and that only for a short decade, during which time a single slight misstep can spell utter ruin of reputation and prospects. If after that time, she remains unmarried, her desperation is neither pitied nor remedied but used as an indictment against her.Lily Bart, motherless and dependent on her aunt, exists only as a fortune hunter restricted to finding herself a husband attached to the purse. But fortunes attract fortunes, and Lily has none of her own, only expensive tastes. One misstep is followed by another and another. Disastrous financial decisions, a naivete concerning Gus Treanor, her friend, Judy’s husband who “invests” her meager savings on the basis of vague speculator tips, a manipulated indebtedness to Mr. Rosedale, a man who is despised by a society riddled with racism against his Jewishness, and her own misplaced effort to protect her friend Laurence Selden from the humiliating evidence of undestroyed letters from a married woman with whom he had a liason combine to effect Lily’s ruin.In an effort to escape her downward spiral she accepts an invitation from Bertha Dorset to join her and her husband, George, on a cruise of Europe aboard their yacht only to be accused by Bertha of adultery with George in order to hide her own affair with Nate Silverton. Again, she tries to shield Selden. But it is too much and Lily, having been disinherited by her aunt has nowhere to go but down.Wharton’s “novel of manners” written a century and a half after Austen’s novels on that subject and moved to the US shows a society just as perversely aligned against maidens of a certain age. The environment of both NYC and Bath is akin to a tank filled with patrolling fish – some of whom are sharks, some of whom are bait.
    • 3/5
      I like Wharton's writing and think I would have enjoyed this one more except for the current times. The story is about the endeavors of a beautiful young woman to stay in the social circles her birth entitles her to, but her increasing impoverishment makes more and more difficult. I admired the heroine Lily Bart in her efforts to "keep up" while sabotaging her marriage prospects out of a personal sense of honor and secret abhorrence for her useless life. However, I had little sympathy for her or her troubles or her friends. The troubles of the idle rich seem trite and boring...which I think was Wharton's point, but didn't make for compelling reading.
    • 4/5
      Edith Wharton belongs in my cohort of favorite authors who write about courting and marriage but not for the same reasons. In “The House of Mirth,” Miss Lily Barton is unmarried and dependent on the society of which she strives to belong. When her plans to marry go awry, she makes one failed maneuver after another and finds herself quite alone and increasingly without the means to support herself. Her life is anything but merriment. Wharton uses satire and humor like Jane Austen and Barbara Pym, but there is a darker undercurrent to her plot which makes me glad that I was born in a much different time.
    • 5/5
      Since I can't seem to find a way to some it up on my own, here's a description from the back of one of the editions: "Lily Bart, beautiful, witty, and sophisticated, is accepted by "old money" and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears 30, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her life in the luxury she has come to expect. While many have sought her, something—fastidiousness or integrity—prevents her from making a "suitable" match."Lily was raised to love splendor and wealth and to be an ornament in that world. She cannot help but strive for the comfort and ease (even if it is marked by falsehoods) that that world offers. And yet there is a part of her that strives for some greater, higher ideal, some deeper truth beyond the finery. Her downfall is in part due to circumstance (being a woman in her time period and raised to desire wealth and shun shabbiness) and in part due to her own poor choices. There are many times she could have prevented a mishap, only to blindly (out of naiveté) or purposefully (out of selfishness and her desire for wealth) step right into it. And many other times she could have saved herself, only to reject it due to her own sense of morality. Witnessing her mistakes is to see all the little ways she is guilty, while simultaneously discovering the multitude of ways she is innocent. It's all just so profoundly human.The story was easy to follow and compelling to read. the scenes unfolding with eloquent language and open frankness. By the end of the book, i found that my commute wasn't long enough and I sat in my car upon arriving home listening to the conclusion, unable to wait until morning. I often cry at books and movies; I'm easily moved (sometimes even a TV commercial will illicit a few tears). But this was an experience beyond mere crying. This was me with my hands pressed to my face, snot running out of my nose, abjectly weeping in the front seat of my car. I can't fully express why this book plucked that inner string in me, but it did.I'm sure a part of it was the spectacular reading given by Eleanor Bron (who also, as it turns out, played Lily's Aunt Peniston in the 2000 movie adaptation) in the audio. She strikes just the right tone of reserve and emotions, her voice soothing and adaptable to each character. I don't know if my wrought emotional reaction would have been the same had I read it in text, but that's not something one can speculate on, since each individual experience is based on a multitude of circumstances that can't be recreated.All I know, is I started this book thinking I would merely enjoy it, and ended it being madly in love.
    • 4/5
      One alternately wishes to smack Lily Bart and feels sorry for her. She is intelligent and has real scruples: she refuses, even in the distress of poverty, to use for blackmail the letters from the married Bertha Dorset to her former lover Lawrence Selden, even though the blackmail Simon Rosedale suggests to Lily would merely force Bertha to retract her lies about Lily and reinstate her in society. Moreover, Lily spends her entire inheritance paying back her debts, mostly to Gus Trenor, who gave her money in the expectation of sexual repayment when Lily naïvely thought he was investing her little income and making huge returns. On the other hand, her scruples bend to the extent of cruising the Mediterranean with the Dorsets when Bertha has made it fairly clear she is wanted to amuse George Dorset while Bertha dallies with her latest, Ned Silverton. When George realizes that Bertha and Ned have been out all night together and he makes a fuss, Bertha turns the light of scandal on Lily and pretends she is the guilty party who was out all night with her husband. This is the episode that precipitates Lily’s loss of her place in society and her aunt’s cutting her off with a tiny inheritance.Lily could have married Selden, who is “poor”—that is, he has to work for a living, as a lawyer. But she has been trained by her mother to abhor all that is “dingy”—that is, whatever isn’t opulent and rich. Yet she cannot bring herself to marry those who would provide this life for her: the priggish Percy Bryce or Simon Rosedale, whose repulsiveness seems to consist mostly in his being a Jew—Lily to her credit finds him less repulsive as the book goes on, but then she’s also getting poorer.The scenes between Selden and Lily have the conversational frisson of good Henry James, who was clearly the model for much of her fiction. Most agree that this is her best book.
    • 4/5
      The House of Mirth is the tragedy of twenty-nine-year old Lily Bart who commits a series of egregious social faux pas that guarantee her downfall. Vain, a tease, pretentious, weak and bit stupid, Lily flits though the upper striatum of New York Society with a naïveté that is at odds with her upbringing. Trading in on her beauty and ability to charm the company she keeps, she flirts and snubs through parties on her way to… what? Unable to define her goals and discriminate to that end, she sabotages her opportunities on the premise of some vague morality. Though impoverished when her father is financially ruined and forced to live in a more circumscribed situation than what she was used to, she is nonetheless acculturated with the ways of the upper crust and thrives in the orbit of the wealthy. She knows the rules, the ways of the rich; and yet, she makes a series of incredulous decisions that defy not only convention, but common sense.

      Edith Wharton has written a novel about societal Darwinism. Mrs. Astor’s 400 of The Gilded Age evolved, and arguably devolved, as established families lost money and standing and, new wealth and those of a “certain race” crept in. Those who failed to adapt would find themselves consigned to the fringes and even “out” altogether. The exposition of this process through a number of characters in the novel is extremely well portrayed, but none more so than with Lily herself. Lily finds herself caught in a time of transition into the new society at the turn of the century and struggling to adapt to newer circumstances. The novel is written with Lily’s voice and perspective (though technically in the 3rd person omniscient), yet, despite being privy to the inner workings of Lily’s mind which might lend understanding to her modus operandi, the reader finds a curious lack of the survival instinct.

      If there is a failing of the novel, it would be that the reader can never come into full sympathy with the protagonist. Whatever you may think of Lily, as a romantic figure, tragic victim, insipid socialite… it’s nearly impossible to know Lily herself. Perhaps this is because Lily doesn’t have a clear definition of herself either. The reader, like her friends, never really knows Lily and it results in a series of misunderstandings. How can you have faith in someone you don’t really know and can’t get a handle on? As one of Lily’s erstwhile friends, Carry Fisher put it when trying to explicate Lily’s situation, “…but I never could understand you, Lily!” Edith Wharton doe not give the reader a special insight into Lily so we can only judge her instead of love her.
    • 5/5
      I have no idea if I'll be able to think of anything worthwhile to say about this. It's the best book I've read in a little while.
    • 5/5
      This book reminded me of when I used to tutor a particular 15-year-old boy. I'd arrive and he'd be snacking and watching this dreadful MTV reality show called “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I used to spend a lot of time over there, so I caught enough bits and pieces of it to feel thoroughly revolted.

      Those of you in the USA have probably seen it – it follows over-privileged kids as they organize and throw their lavish 16th birthday parties. But what I find scary about it aren't the 6-figure cars these kids get, but the sense of entitlement floating in the air. These children think that if they want something they will automatically get it – what's more, they think if they want something bad enough, that means they deserve it.

      I remember standing there one day, waiting for my pupil to rinse his glass, and being overcome by a crushing feeling of pity. Because I really wanted to slap the kid on the TV, but at the same time I knew, with an overwhelming certainty, that this girl was never going to be truly happy, ever. Even if their parents could keep this up, this sort of entitled, shallow upbringing can only lead to frustration, one way or the other. What a waste of a perfectly good life.

      I thought a lot about this moment while reading The House of Mirth. I felt sorry for Lily Bart, while hating her at the same time. I wanted to slap her, while knowing it wasn't her fault that she was the way she was. I wanted her to make up her mind, and at the same time dreaded every one of the options she had.

      For make no mistakes – she does have options. A few of us at Bookish were discussing whether this was feminist literature or not. If feminist literature aims to portray women's lack of possibilities as constraining the female character, then this is not your average feminist book (I know, I know, but bear with me for a minute). Lily Bart does in fact have a few options to choose from, even though they would all entail some measure of dependence from other people. But none of these ever crystallize into anything tangible, because she won't make up her mind.

      Wharton tries to imply that she's secretly an idealist, and she may be subconsciously sabotaging her own attempts at marrying money. But in fact, for most of the book she doesn't openly defy the system – mostly, she's just angry that she can't find a rich man to support her (she wants one, so she should have one, right?). Her moral scruples only show up when she's already put herself in a compromising position and she needs to save what little self-respect she has left. She is not an idealist, not in practice – she wants to work within the system.

      Yet the very system of which she is a result has no place for her. She's a highly specialized product, an ornamental object, the Gilded Age in its most extreme expression - and as such, she's so profoundly dysfunctional she can't bring herself to make a choice for her future, because none of her options are even remotely acceptable. This world is so messed up, its own product can't function within it.

      Watching Lily shy away from at least 4 potential husbands, a few socialite patrons and even an opportunity for blackmail can get annoying after a while (“will you make up your mind already? I have stuff to do, you know?!”). But it also brings me back to my thoughts that day, watching “My Super Sweet Sixteen”. I vaguely thought that this world was f'd up if it was capable of creating such a monstrous thing as that over-entitled 16-year-old. This kid was the product of an environment that was condemning her, by effect of her upbringing, to be chronically dissatisfied for the rest of her life.

      The world that Ms. Wharton portrays in her book is just as monstrous. And if it did this to people, and those people were mostly women, then by the FSM, this book serves its purpose, and it definitely is a feminist book.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite of Edith Wharton's novels. The story of Lily Bart's fall from the heights of society to its depths is a cautionary tale of the price of pride and hubris in early twentieth century New York.Lily Bart is a beautiful young woman - well not so young as she is 28 when the novel opens - of excellent birth, but limited financial means. She lives with her aunt and expects to inherit her wealth when she dies, which is a good thing, since her own income only allows her to live in a modest way. Lily, however, seems to think that her beauty will carry her to endless riches and she lords it over her less well situated cousin and also to enter into a questionable financial arrangement with the husband of her best friend.Lily's problem is that, while she is bad by the standards of the day, she is not bad enough to truly profit from the opportunities that appear before her. Her main fault is that she loves her life of luxury and is seemingly not able to make the smallest sacrifice to assure that her means of life will continue. Instead of attending to her aunt and living the life of a proper young woman as should, Lily embarks on a European adventure with dubious companions that will be her undoing. When her aunt dies, she finds she has been disinherited and faces a truly dismal life.Still, although she has the means to save herself and to, in all likelihood restore herself to her former position, she cannot bring herself to her former position, she cannot bring herself to do so, thus bringing her life to an untimely end.This is, perhaps, Wharton's most tragic novel and the modern reader's heart cries out at every twist and turn of the plot for Lily Bart.
    • 4/5
      The House of Mirth was the selection for my book club this month. Maybe because it is on the classics shelf, my first thought was that this would be another delightful 'parasol' book. You know, the type where all the characters seem to enjoy 'taking a turn around the parlor.' How big were the parlors back then?? The House of Mirth is a timeless classic about social climbing and the status of women. Our discussion of this book lasted several hours and was not just idle speculation about women's lives during the fin de siecle in New York City, but the choices women have today. Edith Wharton's writing style is amazing. Members of my bookclub even had favorite quotes from the book saved to discuss (usually we focus on the food more than quotes from the book). If you are looking to pick up a classic that will lead to a great discussion, then this is it!
    • 5/5
      Moving and profoundly sad. Such a beautiful story written by a master of the English language. I cannot believe I waited so long to read this wonderful book.
    • 2/5
      I must be too obtuse a male for this kind of novel. The heroine has made a career out of looking out for a rich husband, because she was raised just for an ornamental role in New York high society of the late 19th century. At the same time, the manipulation, hypocrisy and connivance is so intense and folded back into itself that it becomes very hard to understand what people's real motives are. The author assumes that the reader is aware with these conventions and can read between the lines. The reader that can't (like me), will feel disoriented and alientated (I fear that, as time goes by, ever more people will be bewildered by the non-sequiturs and seemingly illogical behaviour, mainly of the main character). As a so-called satire of high society, I found it smug and sanctimonious. Its general statements about human nature are at times nonsensical, at worst stupid. I will have to study Jane Austen's books a bit better to understand why exactly I feel one female author's take on the social conventions of her era remains a classic, and this one will fade into oblivion, as far as I am concerned.
    • 4/5
      Excellent...Edith's words are enchanting....the story resonates with me....
    • 2/5
      Gads, what a depressing book. One hundred years does make a difference in literary tastes and what passes, I suppose, for a morality tale. This book was, to my memory, strongly reminiscent of Theodor Dreiser.Still, as a Guttenberg Project digitized book, the price was right!
    • 3/5
      Fish, guests and now wordy novels with obnoxious heroines really do start to stink after three days. Or possibly three chapters - I loved the first fifty or so pages of The House of Mirth but then Lily Bart and the storyline got stuck in a loop, and I found myself dropping off to sleep after struggling through a couple of pages. At work, on the bus, at home - finishing Edith Wharton's novel was a trial, but I was determined. The final few chapters made up for the soporific effect of the bulk of the book, however.My main problem, aside from the fact that Wharton should have contented herself with a short story or a novella, was with Lily Bart, the distinctly unloveable heroine with an inflated opinion of herself (or with the author's inflated opinion of herself). At twenty-nine, a woman of Lily's age and situation would have been labelled a spinster and left on the shelf, but because of her glowing, ethereal, exquisite, etc. beauty, descriptions of which must pad out over half of the novel, Lily still considers herself a 'marriageable girl' in the market for the richest husband she can find. Lily also considers herself to be some sort of princess, when in fact she is little more than a leech who maintains her delusional lifestyle by befriending/flirting with the social elite/nouveau riche of New York. She is a horrific snob without the means or intelligence of an Emma Woodhouse, a calculating gold digger without the deviousness or brass neck of a Becky Sharp, and a stunning beauty without the charm of a Lady Blakeney. Lily Bart is a useless, heartless, fading bauble, who continually sabotages her own ambition to be a rich man's wife, whether by design or cowardice.She has a fear of being poor and 'dingy', and has become 'dependent on ease and luxury', whatever the cost. Lily's sympathisers, like Lawrence and cousin Gerty, blame Lily's upbringing and insist that 'she can't help it', which also irritated me. I couldn't stand her, and was infinitely satisfied by the way her story played out.That said, Edith Wharton does have a way with words, if nothing else - sort of an American Jane Austen, but lacking the same slyness in her social commentary. 'A girl must, a man may if he chooses', Lily opines to her ill-fated suitor, Lawrence Selden. And Wharton's shrewd observation that 'inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self-deprecation' is very true. I also love the poetic descriptions that Wharton employs, as with Lily's aunt, Mrs Peniston: 'She had always been a looker-on at life, and her mind resembled one of those little mirrors which her Dutch ancestors were accustomed to affix to their upper windows, so that from the depths of an impenetrable domesticity they might see what was happening in the street'.A cleverly written, though drawn out novel about a woman who blames everyone else for her own mistakes and failures, and thinks a pretty face should be enough to carry her through life. If I can't even admire or sympathise with the central character, then it's no wonder that I could barely maintain consciousness!
    • 4/5
      Wharton was an extraordinary sociologist specializing in her own class: the rich. Page 53 is unbelievably smart and beautifully tailored. We are in the world of Balzac thematically and James stylistically. I had difficulty entering the story because of her reliance on summary. The most exquisite parts were these descriptions which while placed erratically nonetheless showed you that despite the intellect and the judgement and the constant assessment, Wharton loved the dilated moments where the narrative paused and we were allowed to see where we were..and Wharton could it turns out paint with light. It was almost a hundred and fifty pages before I found myself hooked. The men are all weak and while they survive because they have a clearer understanding of the transactional nature of the world, they offer little. The exception is Selden and I have to say that the problem with both Wharton's scenes with him as well as her handling of the confrontation with Trenor are so obscured and indirectly dealt with that I was never sure what was going on. I know she couldn't talk about sex but it all felt so unclear. The book is dated because of what was written only a few years later namely Joyce but as a 19th century aesthetic it is a remarkably, and one feels true picture of America in that time.
    • 2/5
      The House of Mirth is a “novel of manners” or a novel which focuses on social customs, often the customs surrounding marriage (think Jane Austen, for example). This particular novel focuses on high society in New York during the early 1900′s, a setting very familiar to the author, and was intended to highlight what she saw as the complete lack of anything worthwhile in that society. However, as the forward to my version pointed out, what still draws people to this book today is mostly the character of Lily Bart. Throughout the book we follow Lily’s attempts to marry for money, culminating in her fall from society when she is accused of being a man’s mistress.The author’s writing style, as well as her subject matter, reminded me of Jane Austen. Perhaps it’s simply something about older books, but I found the writing unusually formal. This definitely wasn’t something that kept me from enjoying the writing though. I was still drawn into the plot, able to visualize the locations and feel for the characters. The only part of the writing I didn’t like was the attention to social details required to understand all the plot points. Especially at the beginning, I sometimes felt sure I was missing something! This is a problem not with the author’s writing (since she wrote for her contemporaries) but a problem of book version. And my book version (the penguin classics version pictured above), had unnecessary footnotes describing locations and a few useful word definitions but provided little social context.The characters were definitely intriguing, in part because their motivations were so entirely different from anything in my experience. I was always curious about what they might do next! What at the end kept me from liking this book more was that I often didn’t like what they did next. I think I might have been able to like Lily even though she wanted to marry for money if she’d just seriously gone for it. Instead, her indecision ended up depriving her of a marriage for money or a marriage for love. Even worse, things frequently almost worked out and some little twist of fate caused everything to go wrong. Situations like that, where simple chance ruins everything, are one of my pet peeves in movies and books. They’re just too frustrating! In this case, the book was good enough to keep me reading past all of the bits where things almost worked out in hopes it would get better. But when it ended on the same note, with a so very nearly happy ending, it left me feeling dissatisfied with the whole book. If you’re ok with unhappy endings and don’t share my hatred for cruel twists of fate, the book was well written enough that I’d recommend it much more highly.
    • 5/5
      I *heart* this...even though it makes my heart hurt. Wow. Portrayal of a young woman, Lily Bart, navigating high society New York circa 1903 without the benefit of a supportive family to guide her or the financial means to support the lifestyle. When you are raised only to be decoration and you realize your own uselessness and inability to establish means to independent living, what do you do when you've waived all the options that have come your way?
    • 4/5
      Fabulous novel. Feminist-lit before it was possible for a woman to really write fem-lit. Lily Bart is such an intricate, tragic character. You can't help from being completely swept away by her.

      Read it.
    • 4/5
      This was another book from my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list, & I can see WHY it became such a sensation in it's day, & why it endures as a classic tale today. Lily is an example of the upper echelon of the class system in early New York. She was trained to do absolutely nothing but be decorative & was brought up to do nothing but marry well. Lily has a few character flaws, which prevent her from doing the thing she was brought up to do, especially since she was raised by a relatively stingy rich aunt after her parents died when she was young. As her life reaches 29, then 30, she falls out of favor with the high society crowd, & is invariably pushed down a rung in the ladder each time till she hits rock bottom after her aunt's death & she was disinherited in favor of another cousin. Lily is at heart not a bad person, she just makes bad choices. If she had married Selden when she had the opportunity, her life would have been richer in SO many more ways than simply financially.....sad ending, but not altogether unexpected..
    • 2/5
      An abandoned read. Why must the woman always be the victim? Couldn't stand it; Couldn't finish it.
    • 3/5
      At first this novel seemed to be an American version of Vanity Fair, only not as good. I found Lily to be a bit annoying which I never thought about Becky Sharpe. As the story proceeded, I realized that despite some similarities with Thackeray's work, The House of Mirth was its own story. Unfortunately, although my sympathy for Lily grew, she remained on the whole irritating.
    • 3/5
      ** spoiler alert ** This novel follows primarily a young socialite named Lily Bart as she slowly ruins her life, dropping from the most beloved of country dinner visitors to a working class girl with an addiction to a sleep aid. Although many call this a love story, I think this would be classified as a love story in only the loosest sense, and in the great tradition of novels like Gone with the Wind and Wuthering Heights. If anyone's actually in love, it's rarely if ever admitted and certainly not happy.When I began this book, without the slightest hint of what it might be about other than having previously read another of Wharton's works Ethan Frome, I assumed from the first chapter that the story would be a drawn out account of the changing of Lily's morals as she realizes that, obviously, Lawrence Selden (the pseudo "romantic interest") is the one for her, blah, blah, blah. As it turns out, Lily's morals change very little throughout the book, and her high standards of living combined with her strong moral fiber almost always ruin things for her. Why can't she just marry Selden and maintain her place in the social order and actually go a step up in her living conditions, if not achieving the wealth of which she dreams? Standards. Why can't she get over herself and marry Rosedale who will give her said wealth, even though she quite dislikes him? Standards. She simply can't be pleased. She won't marry for love and she won't marry for money - she's content to settle into old maidhood waiting for the perfect Mr. Right to come along. Meanwhile, her morals generally screw her over too. She has to stand by Bertha Dorset when she cheats! She can't use the love letters she found against her to regain her place and society and Rosedale's hand! She can't confess her undying love for Selden! But she's perfectly cool getting into various shady dealings with the Gormers, Mrs. Hatch and the chloral. Good God, Lily. She can't seem to decide what she wants and refuses to make the right decision throughout the book.Although I found Lily to be in character throughout, I found so many of her decisions frustratingly stupid and unambitious (combined with her thoroughly ambitious personality) that I found it hard to love Lily as much as I would have otherwise. So many times, salvation was within reach. Actually, she didn't even have to reach for it. All she had to do was say the word and be whisked away from her depressing and anticlimactic end...but nope. Her standards/morals always got in the way.Although I found the novel frustrating, slow and confusing (Wharton referred to characters exclusively by their first or last names for pages on end and then would spontaneously end, plus freaking everyone is related which is hard to remember) I did enjoy it. I would say it was really more of a 3.5 than a 3, a meh+ versus just a meh... But I also wouldn't quite say I "liked" it. I'm certainly glad I read it, but I'm also glad it's over.
    • 2/5
      Joy's review: Beautiful young woman only cares for society, but does not manage to marry well and she comes undone... I did this as an audio book. I'd never read any Edith Wharton and felt I should give her a go. But I found myself wishing I was reading, if only so I could skim and skip the dull bits. And there were plenty of dull bits. Kept my interest just enough to keep going to see how it would turn out, but overall, I thought it was pretty dull.
    • 5/5
      Definitely not "mirthful," this downer of a classic is a social commentary and primer on manners of the wealthy-elite community during the turn-of-the-century Gilded Age. It is the story of Lily Bart, a poor girl, who does her best to fit into the closed and cruel society of the rich New York aristocracy. Money and greed become the center of her universe as she spends and gambles away whatever she has. She is beautiful and witty, so she is surrounded by suiters, both single and married. She forms what she understands to be a business partnership with one of the married admirers, and the relationship leads to her downfall when she is accused of having an affair with him. Deeply in debt and even deeper in depression, she struggles to stay afloat, even turning to Laudanum to help her sleep. Her descent is heartbreaking and disturbing, but her revelations are deeply moving. This melodrama is a fantastic reading experience, and I highly recommend it to all.
    • 4/5
      “A runaway bestseller on publication in 1905, The house of mirth is a brilliant romantic novel of manners.” The story of twenty-nine year old Lily Bart, a single woman who lives on the edge of New York high society, is entertaining and stimulating on many levels. Lily is aware of how few options are available to her-life as a lonely single woman, marriage for love without money, or marriage for money. Lily dreads the first two-she loathes what she calls the “dingy” lifestyle of those who are not rich. But Miss Bart’s repeated sabotaging of her own opportunities to marry rich suggest that Lily, for all her self-absorption and need for comfort, is a deeper and more thoughtful woman than many of her contemporaries.

    Book preview

    The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

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