Edith Whartons classic novel, The House of Mirth, is a brillaint expose of the pretense and greed of fashionable New York Society. In The House of Mirth, which helped to establish Edith Whartons literary reputation, she honed her acerbic style and discovered her defining subject: the fashionable New York society in which she had been raised and that held the power to debase both people and ideals. In this devastatingly accurate and finely wrought tale, Lily Bart, the poor relation of a wealthy woman, is beautiful, intelligent, and hopelessly addicted to the moneyed world of luxury and grace. But her good taste and moral sensibility render her unfit for survival in a vulgar society whose glit