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The House of MirthThe House of Mirth
The beautiful, witty Lily Bart, raised only to marry well, drifts and hesitates at the edge of New York’s moneyed society until her choices, and its cruelty, close around her. Wharton’s pitiless first masterpiece.
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A gorgeous, merciless tragedy of a woman with every gift but money, undone by a world that prices her by her marriage. Wharton’s irony has never cut deeper.
SettingNew York, 1900s
Turn-of-the-century New York high society, a glittering marriage market where a beautiful woman without a fortune was a luxury with a shelf life.