Three Novels of New York: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Edith Wharton, Jonathan Franzen (Introduction), Richard Gray (Illustrator)

Overview

Three beloved novels by Edith Wharton, in a couture-inspired Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition designed by a fashion illustrator for Alexander McQueen. This edition celebrates the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton's birth in 2012. The House of Mirth: Nineteen year old Lily Bart is in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to gossip. Wharton charts the course of Lily's life, providing a wider picture of a society in transition; a changing New York where old manners, morals and family attitudes are being replaced by the view that an individual is an expendable commodity. The Custom of the Country: Mr and Mrs Spragg are hoping to forge an entrée into society and arrange a suitably ambitious match for their only daughter. Wharton's story of Undine Spragg affords us a detailed glimpse of the interior décor of upper-class America and its nouveau riche. Through a heroine who is as vain and spoiled as she is fascinating, Wharton conveys a vision of social behaviour that is both informed and disenchanted. The Age of Innocence: When the Countess Ellen Olenska flees Europe and her brutish husband, her rebellious independence stirs the educated sensitivity of Newland Archer, already engaged to the Countess's cousin May Welland. As the drama unfolds, Edith Wharton's sharp ironic wit and Jamesian mastery of form create a disturbingly accurate picture of men and women caught in a society that denies humanity while desperately defending "civilisation".

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143106555
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/29/2012
Series:	Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition Series
Pages:	784
Sales rank:	51,205
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) is the first woman to win the Pultizer Prize. She wrote more than forty books, among them Ethan Frome and Summer.
Jonathan Franzen is the author of the novels Freedom and The Corrections, which won the National Book Award.
Richard Gray is a fashion illustrator who has worked with Alexander McQueen, De Beers, and Givenchey.

Date of Birth:

January 24, 1862

Date of Death:

August 11, 1937

Place of Birth:

New York, New York

Place of Death:

Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France

Education:

Educated privately in New York and Europe

Editorial Reviews

Edith Wharton (1862-1937), Jonathan Franzen's introduction reminds us, was born 150 years ago; to modern readers, a fact less apparent from her writing style than from her choice of turn-of-the-century New York society subjects. This attractive paperback edition collects three worthy Wharton novels, all set in her favorite Gotham settings: The House of Mirth (1905), the unjustly neglected The Custom of the Country (1913), and Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Experience (1920). In addition to Franzen's intro, this version also features Richard Gray's tactfully mannered illustrations.

— Tim Flannigan