Edith Wharton and the problem of sympathy
Jonathan Franzen introduces our Graphic Classic Deluxe edition of Edith Wharton’s Three Novels of New York
For the 150th anniversary year of Edith Wharton’s birth: her three greatest novels in a couture-inspired deluxe edition featuring a new introduction by Jonathan Franzen.
Born into a distinguished New York family, Edith Wharton chronicled the lives of the wealthy, the well born, and the nouveau riches in fiction that often hinges on the collision of personal passion and social convention. This volume brings together her best-loved novels, all set in New York.
The House of Mirth is the story of Lily Bart, who needs a rich husband but refuses to marry without both love and money. The Custom of the Countryfollows the marriages and affairs of Undine Spragg, who is as vain, spoiled, and selfish as she is irresistibly fascinating. The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence concerns the passionate bond that develops between the newly engaged Newland Archer and his finacée’s cousin, the Countess Olenska, new to New York and newly divorced.
Description via Penguin website
Swoon.
I swear that I was writing academically about the literary background of Gossip Girl before I read this article.
I also kind of wish Penguin would stop trying to sell me books based on how pretty they have made the covers but once you threw Franzen into the mix too I was sold.
Gorgeous cover! Intro...Franzen, though? Yeesh.
I swear that I was writing academically about the literary background of Gossip Girl before I read this article. I also...
Oh, I love imagining that...works as Frazen’s coping mechanism.