The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

First published in the year 1905, famous English writer Edith Wharton’s fictional novel ‘The House of Mirth’ tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City’s high society around the turn of the last century.[a] Wharton creates a portrait of a stunning beauty who, though raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically, is reaching her 29th year, an age when her youthful blush is drawing to a close and her marital prospects are becoming ever more limited.