The House of Mirth
by Edith Wharton
Summary
Lily Bart maneuvers through the drawing rooms of Gilded Age New York, trading on her beauty and charm as she searches for a husband wealthy enough to keep her in the only life she has ever known. Wharton tracks her slow financial and social ruin with unsparing precision, showing how a single misstep can strip a woman of every safety net her class promised her. The novel remains one of the sharpest American studies of money, marriage, and the cruelty hiding behind good manners.
Historical Context & Significance
No American prize yet existed to honor novels when the book appeared in 1905, since the Pulitzer for fiction would not begin until 1918. Wharton later won that prize for The Age of Innocence, but many critics argue The House of Mirth is the harsher and more enduring book.