Five-minute digest

The House of Mirth

Edith Wharton

Summary

The House of Mirth, published in 1905, made Edith Wharton famous. Its title comes from Ecclesiastes: the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Lily Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful, intelligent and penniless, an orphan raised to expect luxury and kept afloat by her rich aunt, Mrs. Peniston. In the New York society of the 1890s her only career is marriage to a wealthy man, and time is running out. She almost secures the dull millionaire Percy Gryce but sabotages her chances, partly because she is drawn to Lawrence Selden, a lawyer of modest means who talks of a republic of the spirit, freedom from money and anxiety. Lily gambles at bridge and lets Gus Trenor, the husband of a friend, invest money for her, not understanding that he expects something in return; his attempt to collect damages her reputation. Bertha Dorset, a jealous and powerful woman, uses Lily as cover for her own affair during a Mediterranean cruise and then publicly turns her off the yacht, implying that Lily is the guilty one. Lily's aunt dies and leaves her only a small legacy. Rejected by society, Lily drifts downward, working as a social secretary and then in a milliner's shop where she is not skilled. She holds letters that could ruin Bertha Dorset and could restore her own position, but she will not use them, and she burns them in Selden's fire. She also refuses to marry Simon Rosedale, a wealthy outsider, on the terms that would require blackmail. Having received her small inheritance, she pays her debt to Trenor. Exhausted and sleepless, she takes an overdose of chloral, perhaps by accident, and dies; Selden arrives the next morning with the word he had meant to say. Wharton exposes a society that turns women into ornaments and punishes them for imperfect calculation, while giving Lily a final moral dignity. The ending and adult themes make it suitable for upper high school.

Top Lessons

A woman's choices
Lily has been trained only to marry well. Wharton asks how much her fate is her own fault and how much society's.
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- The Merry Wives of Windsor, Lesson: Many tongues in one town
  Many tongues in one town. Windsor is full of accents and errors: Evans's Welsh, Caius's French, Quickly's malapropisms, Pistol's bombast, the Host's catchphrases. Falstaff's final humiliation includes being mocked by a man who makes fritters of English. The comedy delights in language while gently teaching that pride in one's own speech can be another kind of folly.
- The Trojan War, Medical lens
  The legend Coolidge retells contains several episodes of interest to the history of medicine and of madness, though she tells them as story, not as clinical description. Odysseus's feigned madness to escape the draft is one of the oldest stories of malingering detected. In the traditional versions of the quarrel, Apollo's plague on the Greek camp, sent for the dishonor of his priest, frames epidemic disease as divine punishment. The contest for Achilles' armor traditionally ends in Ajax's madness and death by hi...
- Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, Lesson: The meaning of void
  The meaning of void. Stewart found a private remedy in the single word void. A void contract can be challenged in court, and courts have long allowed a party to rescind it and recover what was paid. The reasoning shows how ordinary legal concepts carry their customary consequences into a statute.
Integrity at a cost
Lily refuses to use Bertha's letters. She chooses honor over safety.
Related across the library
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- Shirley, Medical lens
  Caroline's wasting illness and despair, and Robert's gunshot recovery, are described in detail.
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- Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot), Full Text
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The house of mirth
The title is from Ecclesiastes. Wharton contrasts pleasure-seeking with wisdom.
Related across the library
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- The Importance of Being Earnest, Lesson: Satire of society
  Satire of society. Lady Bracknell judges suitors by money and birth. Wilde exposes the shallowness of such values.
- Gideon v. Wainwright, Lesson: One prisoner's petition
  One prisoner's petition. Gideon wrote his petition in pencil on prison paper. The Court accepted it, appointed one of the best lawyers in Washington for him, and changed the law of every state. The case shows how the ordinary process of petition can bring a large question before the highest court.
- Church History in Plain Language, Lesson: Writing for non-specialists
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- Orlando: A Biography, Lesson: Clothes and the self
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Verified Quotes

“To keep a kind of republic of the spirit—that’s what I call success.”

— Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Book One, Chapter 6 (Project Gutenberg #284).Quote card

The Red Badge of Courage, Chapter I
Yer jest one little feller amongst a hull lot of others, and yeh’ve got to keep quiet an’ do what they tell yeh. Henry remembers his mother's farewell, which disappointed him because it was full of socks and plain duty instead of heroic sentiments.
The Sound and the Fury, Lesson: The Easter sermon and the fallen house
The Easter sermon and the fallen house. The three dated days of 1928 are Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, yet the Compsons experience no resurrection. The Rev. Shegog's sermon on the blood of the Lamb and the 'ricklickshun' is the one moment of shared hope in the book, and it is heard in a Black church to which Dilsey brings Benjy. Faulkner leaves open whether the Easter frame judges the Compsons, consoles Dilsey, or both.
The Nibelungenlied, Lesson: Honor can make truth lethal
Honor can make truth lethal. The scandal of Brunhild's deception matters because courtly rank and sexual reputation are public structures. The poem teaches that truth spoken inside an honor culture may not liberate anyone; it may demand blood.
Heroides, Letter XIV (Hypermnestra to Lynceus)
She is not faithful who regrets her faith. Hypermnestra declares that no threat from her father will make her say she repents of sparing Lynceus.
Instructions for His Generals, Lesson: Discipline built on mistrust
Discipline built on mistrust. Because many soldiers would desert if they could, Frederick designs camps, marches and patrols around preventing escape. The book reveals how an absolutist army treated its own men as a population to be guarded.

“I have tried hard—but life is difficult, and I am a very useless person.”

— Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth, Book Two, Chapter 12 (Project Gutenberg #284).Quote card

Orlando: A Biography, Lesson: Clothes and the self
Clothes and the self. After the change Orlando remains, the narrator says, the same person, but skirts change how Captain Bartolus treats her and how she looks at the world. The book presents two views, that clothes mould us and that something deeper chooses the clothes, and lets them argue.
A Doll's House and Other Plays, A Doll's House, Act 3
I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa's doll-child Nora's recognition of the pattern of her life, explaining the play's title.
Principles of Literary Criticism, Lesson: Two uses of language
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Orlando: A Biography, Chapter 6
The midwife Mrs Banting announces the safe delivery of Orlando's son, in a passage the narrator hurries past.
The Complete Poems, Summary
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The House of Mirth

Summary

Top Lessons

A woman's choices

Integrity at a cost

The house of mirth

Verified Quotes