Edith Wharton

Countess Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society....

Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means....

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

The House of Mirth was Edith Wharton's first great novel....

In The Custom of the Country, Wharton’s scathing social commentary is on full display through the beautiful and manipulative Undine Spragg....

Orphaned following the death of her parents, Lily understands that she must use her beauty, grace, and charm to attain the social position she longs for, but she is caught between her desire for wealth and a strong moral conscience, which sabotages every opportunity she encounters....

Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent, but penniless young woman, lives on the outskirts of New York's high society...

A challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath....

Inside this bundle, you’ll find three stories which established Edith Wharton as a literary legend. Originally written over a hundred years ago, these stories have stood the test of time to resonate in the hearts of people to this very day....

Newland Archer is about to announce his engagement to the docile May Welland when he meets her cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska....

Nick Lansing and Susy Branch are young, attractive but impoverished New Yorkers. They are in love and decide to marry, but realise their chances of happiness are slim....

Interweaving her own experiences of the Great War with themes of parental and filial love, art, and self-sacrifice, national loyalties and class privilege, A Son at the Front is a poignant meditation on art and possession, fidelity and responsibility....

A BBC radio collection of full-cast dramatisations, bringing together Edith Wharton’s most popular and best-loved works....

Selected Shorts is an award-winning series of classic and contemporary short fiction read by acclaimed actors....

Beautiful New York socialite Lily Bart finds herself alone and nearly penniless as her 30th birthday approaches. To maintain her station in high society, Lily must wait for her miserly aunt to bequeath her fortune, or marry well....

Single-minded and spoilt, Undine Spragg arrives in New York determined to procure for herself a social status to match her family’s wealth. Ambition, greed and an arresting beauty soon secure her path to marriage...and also to divorce....

Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer, is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife...

Set deep in the remote countryside of Massachusetts, New England, in a world of small-town prejudice, pettiness and rural poverty, the story of Ethan Frome explores the crippling marriage of a young man to an older woman and his love for her vibrant young cousin, Mattie....

Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with this 1920 novel about Old New York society...

From New York to Europe, the apartments of the nouveau riche to ancient French estates, Edith Wharton tells the story of Undine Spragg....