The Valley of Decision (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

By Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s first novel chronicles the rise to power of Odo Valsecca, a young man who inherits a dukedom during the tumult of the French Revolution. Forced to choose between his liberal views and his family’s feudal tradition, his future is even more complicated by his love for his sweetheart Fulvia, a kidnapping, and a daring escape by sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Feb 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411437753

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.