The House of Mirth: A Novel of Admonition

Twayne's Masterwork Studies #52

by Linda Wagner-Martin

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth was a bestseller in 1905 and continues to be widely read and taught. Incorporating insights culled from Wharton's recently collected letters, Wagner-Martin examines the novel from a feminist perspective. She demonstrates how Wharton's choice of structural devices and skilled manipulation of scene and dialogue address women's prescribed roles in late 19th and early 20th century high society. She relates The House of Mirth to Henry James's Daisy Miller, discusses previous misreadings of the novel, and presents an exhaustive bibliography.

103 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Linda Wagner-Martin is the Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature Emerita at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Over a teaching career spanning 53 years, she taught at Wayne State University, Michigan State University, and UNC, while authoring and editing more than 55 books. Her work includes biographies of major literary figures such as Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou, along with studies like A History of American Literature from 1950 to the Present and The Routledge Introduction to American Postmodernism. After retiring in 2011, she continued publishing extensively. Wagner-Martin’s contributions have earned her prestigious awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Service to American Literature, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Radcliffe Institute. She holds BA, BS, MA, and PhD degrees from Bowling Green State University, where she graduated magna cum laude with majors in English and minors in American History.

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Edith Wharton's writing style of simplicity, along with her subtle word choice and description that really gets you submerged into the story. So much so, that the end was a shock. But also a desire to read more of her work.