Edith Wharton wrote fiction about wealth, marriage and the strict social rules governing upper-class life in New York and Europe. The Age of Innocence follows Newland Archer, whose engagement to May Welland is unsettled by the return of the unconventional Countess Ellen Olenska. The House of Mirth centres on Lily Bart, a woman with limited money moving through a society where marriage is treated as both social expectation and economic strategy. Ethan Frome shifts to rural New England and a much narrower, darker story of an unhappy marriage and frustrated escape. Wharton's prose is precise and socially observant, with reputation and convention driving much of the conflict. Her work fits American classics, social realism and novels of manners. Read more Less
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