Introduction & Notes by Janet Beer Manchester Metropolitan University The House of Mirth tells the story of Lily Bart aged 29 beautiful impoverished & in need of a rich husband to safeguard her place in the social elite & to support her expensive habits
- her clothes her charities & her gambling Unwilling to marry without both love & money Lily becomes vulnerable to the kind of gossip & slander which attach to a girl who has been on the marriage market for too long Wharton charts the course of Lily's life providing along the way a wider picture of a society in transition a rapidly changing New York where the old certainties of manners morals & family have disappeared & the individual has become an expendable commodity The House of Mirth was published in October 1905 to widespread critical acclaim It became an instant bestseller & is regarded today as one of Edith Wharton's most accomplished & compelling social satires