Edith Wharton

The House of Mirth Edith Wharton

The House of Mirth is a novel written by Edith Wharton in 1905. It is a fierce criticism of the exclusive, inflexible and implacable New York high society of the early 20th century. Lily Bart, its main protagonist, becomes from the first moment one of the main literary heroines, with whose disappointments and problems we grasp from the first moment, trapped in the suffocating need to appear and behave as it should, and forced to pay for the smallest infraction of the unwritten rules of your environment. She is a single woman of prominent beauty. In love with Lawrence Selden, Lily rejects his love in order to adjust to the growing demands of the class to which she belongs. She always chooses the worst time to launch her money-raising plans, so later on, a rival (Bertha Dorset) falsely accuses her of wanting to marry her husband. Lawrence Selden: Prestigious New York attorney. In love with Lily Bart, he never manages to confess his secret love to her. This is how this exciting literary work begins to develop.