Three Novels of Old New York: The House of Mirth; the Custom of the Country; the Age of Innocence: "House of Mirth", "Custom of the Country", "Age of Innocence" (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics S.) - Softcover

Wharton, Edith

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9780140189841: Three Novels of Old New York: The House of Mirth; the Custom of the Country; the Age of Innocence: "House of Mirth", "Custom of the Country", "Age of Innocence" (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics S.)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014018984X ISBN 13: 9780140189841

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1996

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Edith Wharton made the world of Old New York her own, the wealthy high society so powerfully depicted in these three elegantly ironic novels. Revolving around the marriage question, they explore the dilemma of women and men held within the rigid bounds of social convention. Thus in The House of Mirth, the novel that first brought Edith Wharton to fame, the complex, poignant heroine Lily Bart must either break away and find a more meaningful existence, or become a part of the superficial values of the nouveaux riches; in The Custom of the Country, the energetic and ambitious Undine Spragg works her way to wealth anti power through a succession of marriages; while Newland Archer in The Age of Innocence is caught in an agony of indecision: whether he should choose the duty of a socially approved marriage, or the love of a woman frowned upon by 'decent' society.

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Synopsis:

The three novels in this volume - "The House of Mirth", "The Custom of the Country" and "The Age of Innocence" - all concentrate on the marriage question and on the dilemma of women strait-jacketed by convention, compelled to be decorative, dependent and conformists.

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