New Essays on 'The House of Mirth'

This volume, first published in 2001, makes distinctive claims for the historical, critical, and theoretical significance of Wharton's breakthrough work.

Deborah Esch (Edited by)

9780521372312, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 15 January 2001

174 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.37 kg

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth captured the attention of a large portion of the reading public when it was published in a serial version in Scribner's for most of 1905 and then as a hardback in October of that year. Wharton's story of Lily Bart, a 'social parasite', according to reviewer Edmund Wilson, 'on the fringes of the very rich', topped the American bestseller list for four months. Furthermore, the novel sealed the author's reputation as one of the major English-language fiction writers of her generation. Each of the four articles collected in this New Essays volume, first published in 2001, makes distinctive claims for the historical, critical, and theoretical significance of Wharton's seminal work.

1. Introduction Deborah Esch
2. The conspicuous wasting of Lily Bart Ruth Bernard Yeazell
3. Determining influences: resistance and mentorship in The House of Mirth and the Anglo-American realist tradition Mary Nyquist
4. Beyond her self Thomas Loebel
5. A mole in the house of the modern Lynne Tillman.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: general [DSB]