Showing results by author "Edith Wharton" in All Categories

Explore the intricate world of social dynamics and personal ambition, where appearances and societal expectations often clash with individual desires. This podcast delves into the complexities of societal pressures and the pursuit of happiness, capturing the tension between personal fulfillment and the relentless demands of social status. Each week, tune in for a new complete audiobook that brings fresh perspectives and narratives to life. With a rotating selection of works, listeners will encounter a variety of voices and stories spanning different eras and styles, offering insight, ...

Multi award-winning narrator Carrington MacDuffie brings her signature depth and wit to this delightful collection of Edith Wharton’s New York Stories: Volume II.

The Age of Innocence is a 1920 novel by American author Edith Wharton. It was her twelfth novel and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. The story is set in the 1870s, in upper-class, "Gilded Age" New York City.

This collection is comprised of "The Hermit and the Wild Woman", a strange mystical tale set in medieval Italy; "The Last Asset" on divorce and manipulation; "The Other Two", a brilliant study of a mannerly quadrangle (and considered by many to be Wharton's best); "The Pretext", on love unrequited; and "The Best Man", on politics and the media.

The Spraggs, a wealthy family of Midwesterners, are visiting New York City to marry off their beautiful daughter Undine. While Undine's beauty catches the attention of several high-society men, she finds it difficult to fit in with the old-money social circles that rule New York. When she finally marries Ralph Marvell, she embraces a life full of frivolities, which eventually leads to her tumultuous demise.

Edith Wharton made her claim in the literary world as the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature. She is famous for her works of fiction, which include The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome. Breaking from this tradition, The Writing of Fiction sets itself apart as a distinctive work of nonfiction, in which Wharton pulls back the curtain to reveal the theories behind a great story. Consider it Wharton’s personal invitation to discover your own potential and jump-start your creative process.

Newland Archer, that paragon of Gilded Age New York, seems bound for a life of privilege with an ideal companion, May Welland. Then a childhood friend, the free-thinking, passionate Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe. In charged encounters between these three and a large cast of unforgettable characters, Edith Wharton elaborates on a timeless theme, the clash between the need to belong and the urge to leap beyond oneself. An American by birth and an expatriate by choice, the author probes her own youthful origins in this winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize in Literature.

"I tell you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions - they'll always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is just on the line of popular interest." Professor Linyard is a man of science. And when he writes a book to great acclaim in which he takes the side of religion, he fully expects the satire to be understood. But when it's taken at face value, he goes along with it to better provide for his family.

"Phil, my dear boy, really -- what's the matter? Why don't you answer? Have you seen the eyes?" An older gentleman invites a group of friends over for dinner and to discuss the supernatural. Afterwards, when only two guests remain, he tells them a story about The Eyes, about a man who is repeatedly haunted at night by a pair of grotesque eyes floating over the foot of his bed. 'The Eyes' is a short, sharp read that slowly enters your psyche and leaves you with a paragraph that may haunt you forever, because it's not about ghosts at all...

"You won't know till afterward. You won't know till long, long afterward." When Ned and Mary Boyne hear that their new house is haunted, they laugh it off and joke that every good house in the countryside must have a ghost for it to be worth purchasing. They move in and forget all about its supposed supernatural quirks. But when Mary notices a strange change in her husband's behaviour, she begins to suspect a not so friendly ghost is indeed at play.

"La casa de la alegría" fue la novela que consagró a Edith Wharton, saludada desde su publicación como un clásico norteamericano. Huérfana a los diecinueve años, Lily Bart es acogida por una tía en el seno de uno de los más antiguos clanes de la sociedad neoyorquina. Diez años después aún no se ha casado y ni su exigua renta personal ni la generosidad condicional de su protectora han hecho nada para favorecer su independencia.

‘Bunner Sisters’ explores the lives of the impoverished class in 1870s New York. Sisters Ann Eliza and Evelina run a small shop out of a shabby basement on a side street. Despite their misfortunes, they are happy in their small, supportive community of women. This bubble will soon be burst, however, as Ann Eliza and Evelina are faced with the harsh realities of the world that exists outside of their shop. A considerate exploration of American society, class, and sibling relationships, Edith Wharton’s novel is unmissable if you enjoyed Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was brilliant, well-educated, well-read, well-traveled, privileged, and prolific. Wharton was, one might say, an influencer of her time. Her body of work encompasses 15 novels, seven novellas, 80-plus short stories, poems, plays, and nonfiction writings spanning travel, design, criticism, war articles, and a memoir. In 1921, she was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her most famous novel, The Age of Innocence.

Lily Bart, impoverished though she was born into New York City's high society in the 19th century, was raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically. As she approaches the age of 29, her marital prospects become limited, and she descends on a two-year social slide from privilege to a tragically lonely existence on the margins of society.

More classic ghost stories from the golden age of spookiness. Eight stories by eight great writers, curated for your hair-raising pleasure. Edith Wharton, Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Company weave marvelous spells that whisk you into times and places you never thought you'd experience. Frightful and delightful.

"What an incalculable sum of gifts and virtues went to make up the monster's daily meal." So observes American expatriate painter John Campton, whose only son is conscripted to military service in France at the beginning of WWI. In Edith Wharton's saga, A Son at the Front, we share the character's anguish as thousands of young men are sacrificed to the insatiable appetite of the war. The lessons are as relevant today as they were almost 100 years ago.

This collection of 10 classic tales is very representative of Wharton's approach to story-telling - in the narrative, the venue becomes a character almost as much as do the people. Situations are presented in an elegantly understated way, and the overall effect is disturbing rather than blatantly horrific.

Questo romanzo, con cui l'autrice vinse il premio Pulitzer nel 1921 (ed era la prima volta che una donna vinceva quel premio), parla della New York del 1870, della famosa Gilded Age. Ma dietro l'oro apparente, si nasconde la rete di convinzioni, tradizioni e ipocrisia che imprigiona il protagonista così inevitabilmente da renderlo egli stesso, col tempo, acquiescente alla propria prigionia.

Prudence Rutledge is terrified. She sits in her isolated New England farmhouse, fearing that her husband is stepping out on her. Seems like Saul has been seen down at the pond, meeting up with a young woman named Ora Brand. Trouble is, Ora Brand has been dead for over a year.

This is a complex and honest portrait of a simple country girl as she confronts her sexuality and the all-encompassing forces of maturity. Wharton's writing expresses the emotions of Charity Royall, her awakening to, and confusion about her first love as few other authors can.