3 Review(s)

OF INTEREST TO: readers of modern American literature, Wharton fans She lay on the warm ridge, thinking of many thing that the woodsman's appearance had stirred up in her. She knew nothing of her early life, and had never felt any curiosity about it: only a sullen reluctance to explore the corner of her memory where certain blurred images lingered. But all that had happened to her within the last few weeks had stirred her to the sleeping depths... -from Summer The sly wit and penetrating wisdom of Edith Wharton-one of the most celebrated novelists in the English language-shines through in this 1917 work, one of her rare "country" novels. Here, small-town librarian Charity Royall is awakened to the limitations of her life-and introduced to the power of passion-by the seductive Lucius Harney, but even far from Wharton's familiar urban ground, she will fall victim to the sexual and social politics that enslave society everywhere. Considered by some a companion novel to Wharton's Ethan Frome, this is an astonishing tale of doomed romance from a master storytelling at the height of her ability. American author EDITH WHARTON (1862-1937) was born into a wealthy New York family and made a career of criticizing and satirizing her own high society in fiction. Her best-known novels include The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920), which won the Pulitzer Prize. ALSO FROM COSIMO: Wharton's The Descent of Man and Other Stories, and Madame De Treymes