In her case, happiness embodied in the image of marriage to a rich and indulgent husband and, subsequently, the ability to behave as a proper woman of society and. The novel was serialised in Scribner's Magazine in 1905 and aspects of it now seem old fashioned but its depiction of social mores and their influence gives it universal resonance. In Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth, protagonist Lily Bart is on a quest for happiness. Wharton shows us exactly how women like Lily could be smothered by the upper reaches of society, where individual tragedies are easily subsumed by the current of other people lives. But Lily can neither accept the yoke of conventional behaviour nor shrug it off and she flounders in the space between. Even the way they break society's rules seem to follow the rules. Other characters in the novel operate within the parameters of their class, sex and wealth. by Edith Wharton 3. Her heroine sinks in stages – failing to snare Percy Gryce or Sim Rosedale as a husband, gambling away large sums of money, being accused of having an affair with a friend's husband, losing her inheritance – until she is reduced to working in a milliner's, her reputation tarnished. Edit An edition of The House of Mirth (1905) The house of mirth.

Wharton is mercilessly frank as she chronicles Lily's fall from grace, contrasting psychological insights with descriptions of external effects.

Edith author of the house of mirth