The House of Mirth
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 The House of Mirth, Penguin Books edition 1993 |
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| Author | Edith Wharton |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Charles Schibner's Sons |
| Released | 14 October 1905 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
The House of Mirth is a 1905 novel by Edith Wharton. It is centered on Lily Bart, a New York socialite who attempts to secure a husband and a place in affluent society. It was one of the first novels of manners to emerge in American literature and one of the first to openly explore the ways Victorian society offered few other options for women in terms of social mobility.
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[edit] Explanation of the novel's title
The title is taken from Ecclesiastes 7:4: "The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."
[edit] Plot summary
Of all of Edith Wharton's best-known novels about old New York, The House of Mirth is the most conventionally tragic as it shows the squalid death of the heroine. Like many of Wharton's novels, it examines a conflict between rigid social expectations and personal desires. The heroine, Lily Bart, is extremely intelligent and adept at playing society's games, which expect her to manipulate an advantageous marriage for herself. She, however, sabotages all her potential marriages; she wants something more for herself, but is too enamored of luxurious living to marry for love alone. The wealthy but tedious Mr. Gryce, evidently taken with her, is snubbed by her when she decides not to meet him at church. Her lawyer friend, Lawrence Selden, would gladly have married her, but she thought him not rich enough. His affection attracts the animosity of the venomous Bertha Dorset, who falsely implies Lily has committed adultery with her husband, in order to distract his attention from her own infidelity. Despite having in her hands evidence of Bertha's duplicity, Lily suffers her name to be tainted by ill-founded scandal, which leads her straight-laced Aunt Julia to disinherit her. Gradually dropped by almost all of her society friends, she is forced to seek increasingly menial and disreputable work, at which she is a failure. Eventually, having discharged her debt to the husband of one of her friends (after her aunt left her the exact sum she owed, instead of the large inheritance that she once expected) she dies of an overdose of a sleeping draught to which she had become addicted.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
A 1906 stage adaptation was written by Clyde Fitch. A 1918 film version was directed by Albert Capellani and starred Katherine Harris Barrymore as Lily Bart. A 1981 version was a TV movie, directed by Adrian Hall, with Geraldine Chaplin as Lily Bart. A 2000 film version was directed by Terence Davies and starred Gillian Anderson as Bart.
[edit] External links
