WHARTON, Edith.
The House of Mirth.
“She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making": First edition of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1905.
$2,500.00
Out of Stock
Item Number: RRB-143519
* Custom Clamshell Boxes are hand made by the Harcourt Bindery upon request and take approximately 60 days to complete
First edition, first issue with the Scribner's seal to the copyright page of the novel that brought Wharton international success. Octavo, original cloth, gilt titles to the spine and front panel, top edge gilt, frontispiece with tissue guard, illustrated with eight plates by A.B. Wenzell. In near fine condition. Bookplate to the pastedown. Housed in a custom half morocco and chemise clamshell box. An exceptional example.
"The House of Mirth, crucial in Wharton's career, establishes many of her major themes and motifs. In its careful structure and symbolism, it reveals how much she had learned about her craft. Its imagery, concerned with fate, Furies, light, darkness, beauty, Darwinian nature, economic determinism, a social realm in transition, and, above all, a circumscribed role for women, points to themes she would employ throughout her career" (Lowe, Modern American Women Writers, 389). "With this novel Wharton recognized, as she would note in her 1934 autobiography, A Backward Glance, that her true subject was the society of old New York and 'its power of debasing people and ideals" (ANB). Listed by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century.
The House of Mirth.
$2,500.00
Out of Stock
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