Edith Wharton's Best Novels

Edith Wharton is rivaled only by Henry James in her ability to represent the repressed emotional undercurrents swirling through the upper classes during America's Gilded Age. In this SDG we will read her two finest novels, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH (1905) and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE (1920). Both these novels explore in penetrating detail the constraints placed not only on the lives of women, but also on those of men living in a society dominated by "good manners" and "respectability." We will also watch the two excellent film adaptations of these novels, THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, directed by Terence Davies, starring Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz (2000), and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Winona Ryder, Jeremy Irons and Michelle Pfeifer (1993).