Published in 1905, The House of Mirth was the novel that launched Edith Wharton’s name as a celebrated novelist several years into her occupation as a writer. An instant classic, it remains one of the pillars among her bibliography of more than fifty works. Why it took me this long to read it, I’ll frankly never know. The novel tells the story of bold, ethereally beautiful Lily Bart whose impassioned desire for all things luxurious in life clashes with her meager income and single status. Marrying rich seems to be her only option, and that excludes from her a future with Lawrence Selden, the handsome and inadequately-financed lawyer with whom she feels most liberated to be herself. Scurrying through the maddeningly treacherous formalities of the social sphere, Lily must learn to hoist herself up amid the unkind words and devious schemes of people disguised as friends. What makes Lily such a remarkable character, I think, is the rapidity with which she bounces from appearing superficial and pious to soliciting herself to the reader as a woman of genuinely profound insight. The alterations between which seem to be, in the context of the story, her ultimate downfall, but they work in the same way to build her up in her audience’s esteem. I won’t spoil the end of the novel in case anyone reading here hasn’t yet experienced it; but I will reiterate, as many usually do, that The House of Mirth is a heart-wrenching and bittersweet work. And it’s just beautiful.

I can understand, after finally reading it, why it carried Wharton to her initial success as a writer. This first reading has already catapulted her high on my list of favorite authors, and it has me wondering why it ever took me so long to read her. I feel like I've read The House of Mirth at an appropriate age all the same, particularly because it calls on so many emotions which, I think, are more acutely developed now. Lily’s plight, despite appearing here in New York’s Gilded Age, has moments that ring of familiarity to modern readers. The challenge of understanding, on the late edge of her twenties, what it is she should do with herself and finding amongst the torrid waters of social convention the true fabric of her own character can easily strike a chord with the appropriate reader. The difference, of course, illuminates the achievements of feminism in our time, though one could argue that the novel also highlights the continued flaws of contemporary society (a feat Wharton achieved with stunning clarity over one hundred years ago!).

Lily is a woman vastly ahead of her time in her aspirations, which are to be free of social obligation and to live her life in true, unfettered independence; to live however she would like, in her own brand of luxury, and on her own terms. Her convictions to make her future so are admirable, though the reader soon discovers with her that such a future isn’t so readily available. Her many ill-advised decisions, which have occasion to win out over her remarkable intelligence, lead her further from her dream life, but closer, in a tragic way, to a better and more blissful understanding of herself. This was, for me, the novel’s triumph as much as the love story between Lily and Selden. That latter piece, unfortunately, has all the chemistry a reader can want, but far too much distance. When the two share a scene their connection is wonderful, but there's a palpable divide between them that keeps the reader from ever really feeling like they've made a connection at all. It did make me wonder if that was Edith's intention because it adds a sort of final blow to the ultimate tragedy of the novel.

But what Edith went above-and-beyond with was her depiction of society. She was a zinger of a lady, completely unafraid to lay bare the scathing indecencies of Lily Bart’s scandalous social “superiors” and exploring in depth the unraveling of society’s merit in the face of classism, hypocrisy, and declining ethics. The people on whose level Lily aspires to reach are, the reader is quick to understand, decidedly far below Lily herself on a moral scale; but the vision of the social climate refuses to see things in that way, priding instead an affinity for the hollow glamour of wealth and status. It's a stab that resonates into the world of the novel's modern readership and clearly expresses why The House of Mirth has endured over time.

I was enthralled in Edith’s execution of The House of Mirth, from her use of language to the artistry with which she took the reader into the depths of her story. It wound around me with such solidness, such impenetrable realness; the sort of novel that will linger forever on my mind, as genuine classics do. The characters which populate the novel are immense in number – it was, initially, a bit difficult to work through the Trenors and Dorsets and Van Osburghs and Stepneys, etc. – but each came to life to set the stage for the dramatics of Wharton’s story, and I eventually came to know them well. Edith’s writing style and particular narrative language felt genuinely accessible to me, too. Her sentences are constructed in a way that are noticeably beautiful but also truly sensible. At the same time, it has its complexities (the huge cast is a good example), but great authors have a way of making their readers welcome complexities now and then. Edith certainly had a unique ability of encouraging her reader to work a little harder at some points and then rewarding them with the brilliance of her talent when they find themselves struck by some of her most impressive sentences.

Overall, I think The House of Mirth was one of the most invigorating books I’ve read from our proclaimed list of literary classics. While the romance between Lily and Selden felt on the brink of being barely a romance at all, there was so much else in the novel that boasted substance – really, Lily herself was powerful enough to carry the entire show on her own, right through every amusing, enlightening, and ultimately heartbreaking scene.

Title:The House of MirthAuthor: Edith Wharton Genre: classics, literary fiction Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons (original) Modern Library (my edition) Publication date: October 14, 1905 Provided by: Personal collection Buy the book:Amazon | Barnes & Noble

In the first decade of the 1900s Edith Wharton’s name begins to rise amid the literary world as her novel The House of Mirth sees great success, thanks in part to the aid of her devoted secretary, her former governess and greatest friend, Anna Bahlmann. Living with the Whartons as a servant and yet held in a companionable station to both Edith and her husband, Teddy, Anna lives at the brink of two very different worlds, viewing Edith’s high society success from a position affording her no rank or attribution. Anna, though, gives no thought to her own recognition; she is interested only in lifting up her closest friend to the best of her ability. When Edith, struggling in her midlife, famously embarks on a tumultuous affair with the young journalist Morton Fullerton, the two women find their friendship precariously threatened by Anna’s disapproval. Edith claims that she never loved her husband, and as Anna’s heart solicitously goes out to the kindly, simple Teddy Wharton a new chasm is marked in their friendship, illuminating the stark differences in their personalities. Unable to detach herself from Edith’s life, Anna must summon her strength to endeavor through this lonely new territory while Edith herself must face the consequences of her actions. Intertwining passages from Edith Wharton’s diaries and letters, The Age of Desire depicts an iconic time in history from the perspective of two resolute and very different women. From Paris to England, Germany to New England, Wharton’s world comes to dazzling life under the skill of author Jennie Fields. Legendary talents take the stage to become delightfully lucid characters in this novelization of Wharton’s midlife scandal, most notably her lover, Morton Fullerton, and their very great friend, the lively and compelling Henry James. The presence of such creative entities as Anna de Noailles and John Galsworthy give finite illumination to the author’s beautifully crafted recreation of Paris in the early twentieth century. But perhaps the most irrepressible presence in the novel comes from the two women at the helm of the story: Edith and Anna. To tell their story is a bold choice, as the likeness between them is nearly impossible to discern; Edith’s actions often exude extreme self-centeredness while Anna’s open and charitable nature rank her highly in the reader’s esteem. But at the core of each woman’s story there is found an extraordinary examination of female nature and the unpredictable, often indecipherable roots of friendship. There was something in each woman that particularly resonated with me – Edith’s desire for a liberation she doesn’t quite know the shape of, Anna’s journey through the labyrinth of her own life lessons against the boundary of her timidity – and I felt the joys and sorrows of them both. Anna’s inability to separate herself from Edith, even despite Wharton’s negligence and apparent disrespect, illustrated a concept of the two women being tied together invisibly, an unbreakable bond that even they themselves don’t fully understand. It presented a journey extensive in its emotions and astonishing in its depth. Through it all I was enchanted, enriched by the author’s prose, and sated in the way that only literature is capable of.

What Jennie Fields achieves with The Age of Desire is an ambitious, luxuriant novel that transports the reader into a bright, decadent world of art and literature, society and scandal, introducing us to two larger than life women and sweeping us on a journey through their heartbreaks and joys as we come to witness the extraordinary strength of a life-encompassing friendship.

Title:The Age of DesireAuthor: Jennie Fields Genre: historical fiction, romance Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books Release date: August 2, 2012 Source: personal collection Buy the book:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BetterWorldBooksConnect with the author:Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads