Showing results by author "Edith Wharton" in All Categories

Charity Royall, a young New England woman of humble origins, meets and falls in love with the worldly Lucius Harney, an architect from the city. In evocative and descriptive prose, Edith Wharton conveys the ecstasy of Charity's first experience in sexual and romantic love, and pulls her heroine through the throes of loving a man who ultimately cannot choose her. Wharton's tale elicits the passion and despair of all great but ill-fated love affairs and enthralls the contemporary audience with its pathos just as it did nearly 100 years ago.

The Cities Classics Collection: London, Paris, New York allows you to step into the vibrant streets of three of the world's most iconic cities through a carefully curated collection of literary masterpieces. From the foggy alleys of London to the grand boulevards of Paris, and the buzzing avenues of New York, these stories bring to life the essence of urban life, capturing the triumphs, tragedies, and timeless experiences of the people who shaped these cities.

In the dead gray cold of Starkfield, Massachusetts, farmer Ethan Frome is struggling to scrape out a living. His duties are to his wife, Zeena - an ungrateful, soul-sick hypochondriac as frigid as the New England winter. When Zeena’s cousin Mattie arrives to help with the farm, the ethereal, gentle-natured beauty brings a light and a fugitive affection into Ethan’s life. Yet for Ethan and Mattie, daring to be happy - and together - will have its consequences.

Odo Valsecca, a young and ambitious nobleman, inherits a dukedom at a tender age and must swiftly navigate the treacherous waters of royal politics. As he engages with rival nobles, the church, and the burgeoning free-thinking movement, Odo faces the daunting challenge of winning the hearts of his subjects—the peasants. Will he rise to power in time, or will the pressures of the Italian court in the seventeenth century prove too much for him? Published in 1902, The Valley of Decision marks Edith Whartons debut full-length novel, skillfully summarized by Mary Kay.

Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story has toured to the Mount, the stately and elegant home of the great American writer Edith Wharton, for the last several summers, presenting Broadway and Hollywood actors reading stories by Wharton and other writers. Selected Shorts now presents a collection of four of Edith Wharton's short stories, recorded live at the Mount, and featuring acclaimed actresses Kathleen Chalfant, Christina Pickles, Maria Tucci, and Brenda Wehle.

A bumper collection of classic ghost stories and strange supernatural tales.

In 1905 New York City, Lily Bart is a young, witty and beautiful socialite. Through a series of unfortunate events, she learns of the bitter consequences for a single woman without wealth, living in an uncaring society.

Wharton's novel The Age of Innocence is set against an exclusive society background in which she reveals how Newland Archer is often the victim of, rather than the key player in, the events. The plot is constructed on a pattern of ironic misunderstandings: for example, Newland is unaware that Ellen's decision not to sue for divorce was for his and May's sake rather than to conceal her past. Furthermore, Newland remains largely blind to the manipulations of a wife he persists in seeing as innocent and naive.

This collection features four spine-tingling horror stories to entice your imagination, including "Bewitched" by Edith Wharton, "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Body Snatcher" by Robert Louis Stevenson, and "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. Each story is chillingly enhanced by music and sound effects. Four Classic Horror Stories is best listened to by candle light at the midnight hour, when the wind howls ‘round the house and ghosts whisper from the dark shadows!

A creepy anthology of 25 of the most hauntingly scary ghost stories ever written. 1.Afterward by Edith Wharton 2. Bagnell Terrace by E. F. Benson 3.His Brother’s Keeper by W. W. Jacobs 4.A Coincidence by A. J. Alan 5.The Confession of Charles Linkworth by E. F. Benson 6.The Death Mask by H. D. Everett 7.The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson 8.The Furnished Room by O. Henry 9.The Thing in the Hall by E. F. Benson 10.The Eyes by Edith Wharton 11. The Wind in the Portico by John Buchan.

A captivating collection of 60-minute classic stories by great writers.

A story of how individual destiny can be shaped and formed by mentors and friends. Culwin is a modern villain, whose crimes arise from holding his tongue at crucial moments, so that events further entangle themselves.

In A Motor Flight through France, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edith Wharton invites listeners on an extraordinary journey through the French countryside at the dawn of the motor age. Based on her 1906 road trip—an ambitious endeavor at a time when automobiles were still a novelty—Wharton’s account captures the thrill of early travel by car and the unparalleled freedom it offered to the adventurous traveler.

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. A decade of monumental change and slaughter. Many of society’s telling questions are cast aside in times of that speak of greater needs, greater priorities. For these talented authors their ideas and words keep these magnificent stories at the forefront of our literary lives.

The Custom of the Country (1913) is a scathing critique of American upward mobility, as told through the journey of overindulged Undine Spragg. She moves from Apex City to New York and then Paris in pursuit of two things - money and status. She will stop at nothing to achieve this goal, no matter how many affairs, lies, and divorces it takes.

It's midnight. Turn out the lights, cuddle with your true love, and shiver to fright-meisters Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. P. Lovecraft. Quicken your pulse with the elegant terror of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Guy de Maupassant. Chortle at the black glee of H. H. Munro and Ambrose Bierce.

A haunting collection of strange and macabre short stories, ideal for listening to around the fire on a cold winter evening.... 'The Last Leaf' by O. Henry, 'On the Northern Ice' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Fire' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'The Tiger' by Hugh Walpole, 'Cool Air' by H. P. Lovecraft, 'The Missing Model' by Lettice Galbraith, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Snow' by Hugh Walpole, 'Over an Absinthe Bottle' by W. C. Morrow, 'The Coffin Merchant' by Richard Middleton.

Set in the 1920s, The Glimpses of the Moon details the romantic misadventures of Nick Lansing and Susy Branch, a couple with the right connections but not much in the way of funds. They devise a shrewd bargain: they'll marry and spend a year or so sponging off their wealthy friends, honeymooning in their mansions and villas.

Summer details the sexual awakening of Charity Royall, who lives unhappily with her hard-drinking adoptive father in an isolated New England village. Lucius Harney, a visiting architect, awakens her sexual passion and her hope for escape. Exploring Charity's relation to her father and her lover, Edith Wharton delves into dark cultural territory: repressed sexuality, small-town prejudice, and, in subtle hints, incest.

Ethan works his unproductive farm, and struggles to maintain an existence with his suspicious and hypochondriac wife, Zeena. But when Zeena's cousin enters their household as a "hired girl", Ethan finds himself obsessed with her and with the possibilities for happiness she comes to represent.