Other editions of book The House of Mirth

Set among the elegant brownstones and opulent country houses of turn-of-the-century upper-class New York, Edith Wharton's first great novel is a precise, satiric portrayal of what the author herself called "a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers." Her brilliantly complex characterization of the doomed Lily Bart, whose stunning beauty and dependence on marriage for economic survival reduce her to a decorative object, is an incisive commentary on the status of women in that society. Lily is all too much a product of the world indicated by the title, a phrase taken from Ecclesiastes: "The heart of fools is in the house of mirth." From her tragic attraction to bachelor lawyer Lawrence Seldon to her desperate relationship with the social-climbing Rosedale, it is Lily's very specialness that threatens the fulfillment she seeks in life. Time after time, Lily fails to make the ultimate move, to abandon the possibility of a greater love and enter into a mercenary union. This masterful novel from one of literature's greatest voices is a tragedy of money, morality, and missed opportunity.

Lily Bart enjoys an equitable standing within the New York City elite. Although she desires a comfortable life and has received generous proposals from wealthy suitors, Lily remains single with hope for an honest and loving marriage. However, her life takes an unexpected twist when a nasty bit of gossip instigates her long descent down the social ladder. With her reputation plummeting, Lily escapes the city by joining an acquaintance on a European cruise. But this, too, causes irreparable damage to her reputation, and soon Lily finds herself disowned and friendless.

Lily Bart, a beautiful but impoverished socialite, is on her way to a house party at Bellomont, the country home of her best friend, Judy Trenor. Her pressing task is to find a husband with the requisite wealth and status to maintain her place in New York society. Judy has arranged for her to meet the wealthy though boring Percy Gryce, a potential suitor. Lily grew up surrounded by elegance and luxury-an atmosphere she cannot live without as she has learned to abhor "dinginess." The loss of her father's wealth and the death of her parents left her an orphan without inheritance or a caring protector. She adapts to life as ward of her straight-laced aunt Julia Peniston from whom she receives an erratic allowance, a fashionable address, and good food, but little succor. Additional challenges to her success in the "marriage market" are her advancing age-she has been on the "marriage market" for ten years, her penchant for gambling at bridge leaving her with debts beyond her means to pay, her efforts to keep up with her wealthy friends, her inner most desire to marry for love as well as money and status, and her longing to be free of the claustrophobic constrictions and routines of upper crust society.

Published in 1905 to enormous critical and financial success, the House of Mirth is the book that made Edith Wharton famous and marked the beginning of the author's mature phase of novel writing. This is a comedy of manners that turns into grim tragedy as Lily Bart, the novel's central character, lets numerous marriage opportunities slip between her fingers. Although marriage is her only means of escape from material worry, Lily's delicacy of taste and moral sensibilities render her unfit for the ornamental role prescribed for her by society. Her tumble down the social ladder ultimately leaves her shunned both by family and former friends.

The House of Mirth stands as the work that first established Edith Wharton's eminent literary reputation. In it she honed her acerbic style and discovered her defining subject: the fashionable New York society in which she had been raised, and which held the power to debase both people and ideals. Its beautiful, intelligent heroine, Lily Bart, is both hopelessly addicted to the pleasures of the moneyed world and unable to survive in it.