Volume 4

     Following on from "They came like swallows"  - which so far has had almost unanimous approval and excellent comments - we have another American book as our next Cornflower Book Group read. A word on the selection process first - apart from the book we got started with, all the others have been suggested by readers of this site; titles have been put into a hat and one drawn out each month, so what we read isn't influenced by my taste! It may be that a couple of the books we have waiting will prove too difficult to get hold of as they aren't currently in print and so we may have to stick to the easily obtainable titles - I'll ask for more suggestions soon.

    But on to our next book, and it is Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth which has been picked to entertain us this time. I have read only her superb but short Ethan Frome so again, this will be new ground for me.

Here's what my Oxford World's Classics edition says:

" 'She had been fashioned to adorn and delight' - Since its publication in 1905, The House of Mirth has overwhelmed readers by the sharpness of Wharton's observations and the power of her style. Its heroine, Lily Bart, is beautiful, poor, and unmarried at 29. In her search for a husband with money and position she betrays her own heart and sows the seeds of the tragedy that finally overwhelms her.

"The House of Mirth is a lucid, disturbing analysis of the stifling limitations imposed upon women of Wharton's generation. Herself born into Old New York Society, Wharton watched as an entirely new set of people living by new codes of conduct entered the metropolitan scene. In telling the story of Lily Bart, who must marry to survive, Wharton recasts the age-old themes of family, marriage, and money in ways which transform the traditional novel of manners into an arrestingly modern tale of one woman's struggle to succeed."

    I hope everyone who wants to can get hold of a copy of this in time to read it by Saturday, 15th. March, and if you haven't read our first three books but would like to join in here for the first time, please do - everyone is very welcome!                       

Comments

[BooksPlease]

I've never read anything by Edith Wharton - so I'm looking forward to reading this. I've reserved it from the library and hope I can get it in time to read it for this discussion.

[Angela Young]

I'm looking forward to rereading The HOUSE of MIRTH. EW is such an astonishingly acute social observer. Lovely hat-pick.