The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart, aged 29, beautiful, impoverished and in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite, and to support her expensive habits - her clothes, her charities and her gambling. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to the kind of gossip and slander which attach to a girl who has been on the marriage market for too long. Wharton charts the course of Lily’s life, providing, along the way, a wider picture of a society in transition, a rapidly changing New York where the old certainties of manners, morals and family have disappeared and the individual has become an expendable commodity.

The House of Mirth was Published in October 1950 to widespread critical aclaim.it became an instant best-seller and is regarded today as one of Edith Wharton's most accomplished and compelling social satires.

This Norton Critical Edition of Edith Wharton's quintessential novel of the Gilded Age reprints the 1905 Scribner's magazine text, including the eight original illustrations. The text is introduced and thoroughly annotated by the editor for student readers.

"Backgrounds and Contexts" includes selections from Edith Wharton's letters; period articles about etiquette, vocations for women, factory life, and Working Girls' Clubs; excerpts from the work of contemporary social thinkers, including Thorstein Veblen, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Olive Schreiner; a consideration of late-nineteenth-century anti-Semitism by historian Jdhn Higham; Charles Dana Gibson's precautionary piece "Marrying for Money" (including four Gibson line drawings); and a tableau vivant of "The Dying Gladiator."

"Criticism" reprints six central contemporary reviews of the novel and six biographical and interpretive modern essays by Millicent Bell, Louis Auchincloss, Cynthia Griffin Wolff, R. W. B. Lewis, Elaine Showalter, and Elizabeth Ammons.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface

Acknowledgment

A Note on the Text

The Text of The House of Mirth

Backgrounds and Contexts

 Edith Wharton·Selected Letters

 Thorstein Veblen·[Conspicuous Leisure and Conspicuous Consumption]

 Mrs. Burton Kingsland·[The Duties of a House-Guest]

 C. Lothrop Higgins·[Vocations for the Trained Woman: Millinery]

 Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst. [The Experience of a Lady as a Factory Girl1

 Mary Cadwalader Jones·[Working Girls' Clubs]

 Charles Dana Gibson·[Marrying for Money]

 Charlotte Perkins Gilman·[Women and Economics]

 Olive Schreiner·[Sex-Parasitism]

 Lorine Pruette, Ph.D.·[The Waste of Women in America]

 John Higham·Ideological Anti-Semitism in the Gilded Age

 Tableau Vivant of "The Dying Gladiator"

Criticism

Contemporary Reviews

The Independent·Mrs. Wharton's Latest Novel

E. E. Hale, Jr.·Mrs. Wharton's "The House of Mirth"

Mary Moss·[Review of The House of Mirth]

Mary K. Ford·[Excerpt from "Two Studies in Luxury"]

The Nation·[Review of The House of Mirth]

The Saturday Review·[Review of The House of Mirth]

 Modern Critical Views

Millicent Bell·[Wharton as Businesswoman: Publishing The House of Mirth]

Louis Auchincioss·[The House of Mirth and Old and NewNew York]

Cynthia Griffin Wolff- Lily Bart and the Beautiful Death

R. W. B. Lewis·[The House of Mirth Biographically]

Elizabeth Ammons·[Edith Wharton's Hard-Working Lily: The House of Mirth and the Marriage Market]

Elaine Showalter·The Death of the Lady (Novelist): Wharton's House of Mirth

Edith Wharton: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography