Even a short novel like „Madame de Treymes” shows you what a masterful writer Edith Wharton was. It is a captivating portrait of turn-of-the-century American and French culture. Inspired by Wharton’s own entré into Parisian society in 1906 and reminiscent of the works of Henry James, it tells the story of two young innocents abroad: Fanny Frisbee of New York, unhappily married to the dissolute Marquis de Malrive, and John Durham, her childhood friend who arrives in Paris in...
One of Edith Wharton’s most famous novels – the first by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize – exquisitely details a tragic struggle between love and responsibility during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people „dreaded scandal more than disease”. Newland Archer, a restrained young attorney, is engaged to the lovely May Welland but falls in love with May’s beautiful and unconventional cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska who returns to New York after a...
In 1921, Edith Wharton became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, earning the award for „The Age of Innocence”. But Wharton also wrote several other novels, as well as poems and short stories that made her not only famous but popular among her contemporaries. „Tales of Men and Ghosts” (1910) consists of ten masterful ghost stories that listed here in chronological order of their original publication dates: „The Bolted Door”, „His Father’s Son”, „The Daunt Diana”, „The ...
Is Lily Bart a victim of circumstance or an agent of her own destruction? Edith Wharton’s acutely observed novel poses this question as it follows Lily’s tragic path through the country houses, card tables and drawing rooms of New York’s beau monde at the turn of the 20th century. Impoverished but well-born, Lily realizes a secure future depends on her acquiring a wealthy husband. Her desire for a comfortable life means that she will not marry for love without money, but he...
The arrival of Countess Ellen Olenska in the Verdana of the 1870s creates a stir in high society, challenging rigid conventions and hypocritical respectability. Glamorous and strong-willed, she causes scandal and embarrassment when she decides to free herself of an unhappy marriage by divorcing her husband. Greatly disapproved of by her family, she can only count on the support of her cousin’s fiancé, Newland Archer, who falls in love with her and tries to persuade her to sta...
Niezwykła opowieść o prawdziwych uczuciach, wewnętrznym rozdarciu, samotności i namiętności przeplatanej z życiowymi rozterkami. Powieść przedstawia nam historię angielskiego farmera Ethana Frome’a, który porzuca swe ambicje by poświęcić się gospodarstwu oraz schorowanej żonie Zeenie. Brak miłości i satysfakcji ze związku rodzi u bohaterów frustracje i samotność. Wszystko zmienia się gdy do gospodarstwa wprowadza się Meetie, młoda kuzynka Zeenie. Namiętny romans rodzący się...
Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel is a devastating critique of American upward mobility, told through the journey of Undine Spragg from fictional Midwestern Apex City to New York to Paris. Undine Spragg is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. As Undine climbs the social ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for who she has to step on to get anything and everything she ...
In the early years of the 20th century, life on a farm in Massachusetts is not easy. The New England winters are hard; snow and ice cover the fields for months, and the nights are long and cold. For a poor farmer like Ethan Frome, life has few bright moments. He works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his difficult, suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena’s young and beautiful cousin Mattie Silver enters their househo...
Originally published in 1901, „Crucial Instances” is the second collection of six short stories connected, as the title suggests, by a hinging moment in the narrative through which the plot alters dramatically. The contents included the following: „The Duchess at Prayer”, „The Angel at the Grave”, „The Recovery”, „Copy: A Dialogue”, „The Rembrandt”, „The Moving Finger” and „The Confessional”.This is a great collection of stories, where Edith Wharton shows her wide range of ...
Co lepsze: smutek braku perspektyw czy gorycz porażki? Anna Eliza i Ewelina, choć są siostrami, różnią się od siebie jak ogień i woda. Starsza stale się poświęca i podporządkowuje odgórnym zasadom. Młodsza nie ma tendencji do współodczuwania, skupia się raczej na sobie. Młode kobiety prowadzą wspólnie mały sklepik na przedmieściach Nowego Jorku i do tego właściwie ogranicza się cała ich życiowa aktywność. Sytuacja ulega zmianie, gdy starsza kupuje młodszej na urodziny zegar w...
Europa, lata dwudziestych XX wieku. Głównymi bohaterami jest kochające się małżeństwo: oboje dobrze urodzeni, ale biedni. Zakochanie się przeszkodziło im w planach – Susy i Nick chcieli zdobyć majątek zawierając korzystny związek, a tu – masz ci los! – przeszkodziła im miłość. Ponieważ jednak są nowocześni i sprytni – zawarli umowę: przez rok mogą szczęśliwie żyć na koszt znajomych (wszyscy chcą pomagać nowożeńcom!), a jeśli któreś z nich będzie miało możliwość zawarcia bar...
