The House of Mirth（欢乐之家）

This Norton Critical Edition of Edith Wharton's quintessential novel of the Gilded Age reprints the 1905 Scribner's magazine text, including the eight original illustrations. The text is introduced and thor-ughly annotated by the editor for student readers.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes selections from Edith Wharton's letters; period articles about etiquette, vocations for women,factory life, and Working Girls' Clubs; excerpts from the work of" contem-porary social thinkers, including Thorstein Veblen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Olive Schreiner; a consideration of.late-nineteenth-century anti-Semitism by historian John Higham; Charles Dana Gibson's pre-cautionary piece "Marrying for Money" (including four Gibson line drawings); and a tableau vivant of "The Dying Gladiator."
"Criticism" reprints six central contemporary reviews of the novel and six biographical and interpretive modern essays by Millicent Bell,Louis Auchincloss, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, R. W. B. Lewis, Elaine Showaher, and Elizabeth Ammons.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

America's most famous woman of letters, and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Edith Wharton was born into one of the last "leisured class" families in New York City, as she put it, in 1862. Educated privately, she was married to Edward Wharton in 1885, and for the next few years, they spent their time in the high society of Newport (Rhode Island), then Lenox (Massachusetts) and Europe. It was in Europe that Wharton first met Henry James, who was to have a profound and lasting influence on her life and work. Wharton's first published book was a work of nonfiction, in collaboration with Ogden Codman, The Decoration of Houses (1897), but from early on, her marriage had been a source of distress, and she was advised by her doctor to write fiction to relieve her nervous tension. Wharton's first short stories appeared in Scribner's Magazine, and though she published several volumes of fiction around the turn of the century, including The Greater Inclination (1899), The Touchstone (1900), Crucial Instances (1901), The Valley of Decision (1902), Sanctuary (1903), and The Descent of Man and Other Stories (1904), it wasn't until 1905, with the publication of the bestselling The House of Mirth, that she was recognized as one of the most important novelists of her time for her keen social insight and subtle sense of satire. In 1906, Wharton visited Paris, which inspired Madame de Treymes (1907), and made her home there in 1907, finally divorcing her husband in 1912. The years before the outbreak of World War I represent the core of her artistic achievement, when Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912), and The Custom of the Country (1913) were published. During the war, she remained in France organizing relief for Belgian refugees, for which she was later awarded the Legion of Honor. She also wrote two novels about the war, The Marne (1918) and A Son at the Front (1923), and continued, in France, to write about New England and the Newport society she had known so well in Summer (1917), the companion to Ethan Frome, and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. Wharton died in France in 1937. Her other works include Old New York (1924), The Mother's Recompense (1925), The Writing of Fiction (1925), The Children (1928), Hudson River Bracketed (1929), and her autobiography, A Backward Glance (1934).

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Amazon.com "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth," warns Ecclesiastes 7:4, and so does the novel by Edith Wharton that takes its title from this call to heed. New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age.

One of Wharton's earliest descriptions of her heroine, in the library of her bachelor friend and sometime suitor Lawrence Selden, indicates that she appears "as though she were a captured dryad subdued to the conventions of the drawing room." Indeed, herein lies Lily's problem. She has, we're told, "been brought up to be ornamental," and yet her spirit is larger than what this ancillary role requires. By today's standards she would be nothing more than a mild rebel, but in the era into which Wharton drops her unmercifully, this tiny spark of character, combined with numerous assaults by vicious society women and bad luck, ultimately renders Lily persona non grata. Her own ambivalence about her position serves to open the door to disaster: several times she is on the verge of "good" marriage and squanders it at the last moment, unwilling to play by the rules of a society that produces, as she calls them, "poor, miserable, marriageable girls.

Lily's rather violent tumble down the social ladder provides a thumbnail sketch of the general injustices of the upper classes (which, incidentally, Wharton never quite manages to condemn entirely, clearly believing that such life is cruel but without alternative). From her start as a beautiful woman at the height of her powers to her sad finale as a recently fired milliner's assistant addicted to sleeping drugs, Lily Bart is heroic, not least for her final admission of her own role in her downfall. "Once--twice--you gave me the chance to escape from my life and I refused it: refused it because I was a coward," she tells Selden as the book draws to a close. All manner of hideous socialite beasts--some of whose treatment by Wharton, such as the token social-climbing Jew, Simon Rosedale, date the book unfortunately--wander through the novel while Lily plummets. As her tale winds down to nothing more than the remnants of social grace and cold hard cash, it's hard not to agree with Lily's own assessment of herself: "I have tried hard--but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person. I can hardly be said to have an independent existence. I was just a screw or a cog in the great machine I called life, and when I dropped out of it I found I was of no use anywhere else." Nevertheless, it's even harder not to believe that she deserved better, which is why The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up. --Melanie Rehak --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From Library Journal Wharton's account of the ill-fated life of Lily Bart receives a perfunctory treatment in this audio program. It is New York in the early 20th century; Lily loves Lawrence Selden, but he sees her as a fortune hunter, with tragic consequences. The author excels at delineating the ways money, romance, and social standing intertwine in the society of the time. Included is a lengthy introduction by Wharton biographer R.W.B. Lewis that sets the work in the context of the writer's life and career. Casual listeners may consider the preface too long and scholarly, and those coming to the novel for the first time may be put off by learning the outcome and by hearing Lewis's uncertainty about whether it is a masterpiece. Anna Fields handles the narration adequately but strains to create masculine voices and makes most of the women too flighty. As a result, the characters seem more trivial than Wharton intended. Not recommended. Michael Adams, CUNY Graduate Ctr. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition. From AudioFile Study guides arrive in a new format with this audio series on classic literature. This program includes an introduction to Edith Wharton and her context, dramatic readings, a plot synopsis and analysis. The readings provide particular insight though the other elements use the audio medium to good effect.as well. Similar to a single-class seminar, the program offers both solid information and an overview. DiMase's readings are a great asset, and teachers should consider using them for classes, then providing their own discussion and review. Her voice is rich and fluid, and it transports listeners to the turn-of-the-century setting. The series is worth looking into as a teacher resource or for individuals interested in self-study. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Caren Town The most compelling aspect of The House of Mirth is watching Lily Bart descend the social ladder, changing from an alluring, fashionable decoration at lavish country estates to a wild-eyed, dishevelled woman living in a shabby hotel, addicted to tea and sleeping drops. The most frightening aspect of the book is that the progress seems somehow both inevitable and avoidable at nearly every turn. Here is a physically beautiful and psychologically complex woman who has become or been made into an object for consumption by a society that values the material world exclusively. As Lily approaches thirty, still unmarried, and without financial resources, her value - in this society - declines. Part of the responsibility for her fate can be placed on her lack of a maternal influence, on her own irresolution, on the weakness of her primary suitor, on the viciousness of the other rich women in the novel, but the ultimate blame has to fall on a society that made her "so evidently the victim of the civilization that produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate." Nearly a century after its publication, this novel is chillingly accurate in its remorseless critique of a society willing to sacrifice any and all who do not conform to its expectations. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. --This text refers to the Paperback edition. Louis Auchincloss Uniquely authentic among American novels of manners. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition. Review Gore Vidal There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as "major," and Edith Wharton is one. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Preface
Acknowledgment
A Note on the Text
The Text of The House of Mirth
Backgrounds and Contexts
Edith Wharton·Selected Letters
Thorstein Veblen·[Conspicuous Leisure and Conspicuous Consumption]
Mrs. Burton Kingsland·[The Duties of a House-Guest]
C. Lothrop Higgins·[Vocations for the Trained Woman:Millinery]
Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst·[The Experi-ence of a Lady as a Factory Girl]
Mary Cadwalader Jones·[Working Girls' Clubs]
Charles Dana Gibson·[Marrying for Money]
Charlotte Perkins Gilman·[Women and Economics]
Olive Schreiner·[Sex-Parasitism]
Lorine Pruette, Ph. D.·[The Waste of Women in America]
John Higham·Ideological Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age
Tableau Vivant of"The Dying Gladiator"
Criticism
Contemporary Reviews
The Independent·Mrs. Wharton's Latest Novel
E. E. Hale, Jr.·Mrs. Wharton's "The House of Mirth"
Mary Moss·[Review of The House of Mirth]
Mary K. Ford·[Excerpt from "Two Studies in Luxury"]
The Nation·[Review of The House of Mirth]
The Saturday Review·[Review of The House of Mirth]
Modem Critical Views
Millicent Bell·[Wharton as Businesswoman: Publishing The House of Mirth]
Louis Auehincloss·[The House of Mirth and Old and New New York]
Cynthia Griffin Wolff·Lily Bart and the Beautiful Death
R. W. B. Lewis·[The House of Mirth Biographicallyl
Elizabeth Ammons·[Edith Wharton's Hard-Working Lily:
The House of Mirth and the Marriage Market]
Elaine Showalter·The Death of the Lady (Novelist):
Wharton's House of Mirth
Edith Wharton: A Chronology
Selected Bibliography