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Also by Edith Wharton:

The Custom of the Country, November 2022
Hardcover / e-Book
The Age of Innocence: The Wild and Wanton Edition Volume 2, February 2014
e-Book
The Age of Innocence: The Wild and Wanton Edition, Volume 1, February 2014
e-Book
The Custom of the Country, January 2009
Hardcover
The House of Mirth, February 2000
Paperback (reprint)
Ethan Frome, March 1997
Paperback (reprint)

THE HOUSE OF MIRTH
By: Edith Wharton

Signet
February 2000
On Sale: February 1, 2000
Featuring: Lily Bart
350 pages
ISBN: 0451527569
EAN: 9780451527561
Paperback (reprint)
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Fiction

"A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys."--Edith Wharton

Lily Bart knows that she must marry--her expensive tastes and mounting debts demand it--and, at twenty-nine, she has every artful wile at her disposal to secure that end. But attached as she is to the social world of her wealthy suitors, something in her rebels against the insipid men whom circumstances compel her to charm.

"Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape," Lily muses as she contemplates the prospect of being bored all afternoon by Percy Grice, dull but undeniably rich, "on the bare chance that he might ultimately do her the honor of boring her for life?" Lily is distracted from her prey by the arrival of Lawrence Selden, handsome, quick-witted, and penniless.

A runaway bestseller on publication in 1905, The House of Mirth is a brilliant romantic novel of manners, the book that established Edith Wharton as one of America's greatest novelists.

Media Buzz

Studio 360 - July 6, 2013
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Studio 360 - October 30, 2010
All Things Considered - March 11, 2008