House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
Born in 1862 in a private New York society, Edith Wharton bridged the literary worlds of two continents and two centuries in her rich and glamorous life, against the rigid traditions she often rebelled against. Her tenth book, Mirth's House, is the story of the tragic stay between young Lily Barth and New York's upper class at the end of the century, and touches on the insidious consequences of a social contract and the sexual and financial aggression that women are subjected to free spirit.
