House of Mirth

The House of Mirth, a novel by Edith Wharton (1862-1937), tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City's high society around the turn of the last century. Wharton creates a portrait of a stunning beauty who, though raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically, is reaching her 29th year, an age when her youthful blush is drawing to a close and her marital prospects are becoming ever more limited. The House of Mirth traces Lily's slow two-year social descent from privilege to a tragically lonely existence on the margins of society. Wharton uses Lily as an attack on "e;an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class."e; Before publication as a book on October 14, 1905, The House of Mirth was serialized in Scribner's Magazine beginning in January 1905. It attracted a readership among housewives and businessmen alike. Charles Scribner wrote Edith in November 1905 that the novel was showing "e;the most rapid sale of any book ever published by Scribner."e; By the end of December sales had reached 140,000 copies. Edith's royalties were valued at more than half a million dollars in today's currency. The commercial and critical success of The House of Mirth solidified Wharton's reputation as a major novelist. Because of the novel's commercial success, some critics classified it as a genre novel. However, Edith's pastor, then rector of Trinity Church in Manhattan, wrote to tell her that her novel was "e;a terrible but just arraignment of the social misconduct which begins in folly and ends in moral and spiritual death."e; This moral purpose was not lost on the literary reviewers and critics of the time who tended to categorize it as both social satire and a novel of manners. Carol Singley in her Introduction to Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth: A Case Book states, "e;[The House of Mirth] is a unique blend of romance, realism, and naturalism,[and thus] transcends the narrow classification of a novel of manners."e;