Three Novels of Old New York: The House of Mirth; The Custom of the Country; The Age of Innocence

by Edith Wharton

Wharton's acclaimed portrayals of life, love, and marriage among New York's wealthy society in the early years of this century depict with subtle irony the cruelties of social conventions and the contradictions between monetary values and moral values. These three novels are the best representations of Wharton's intuitive insight.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, American, Literary Fiction, 20th Century

992 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1910

About the author

Edith Wharton emerged as one of America’s most insightful novelists, deftly exposing the tensions between societal expectation and personal desire through her vivid portrayals of upper-class life. Drawing from her deep familiarity with New York’s privileged “aristocracy,” she offered readers a keenly observed and piercingly honest vision of Gilded Age society.

Her work reached a milestone when she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, awarded for The Age of Innocence. This novel highlights the constraining rituals of 1870s New York society and remains a defining portrait of elegance laced with regret.

Wharton’s literary achievements span a wide canvas. The House of Mirth presents a tragic, vividly drawn character study of Lily Bart, navigating social expectations and the perils of genteel poverty in 1890s New York. In Ethan Frome, she explores rural hardship and emotional repression, contrasting sharply with her urban social dramas.

Her novella collection Old New York revisits the moral terrain of upper-class society, spanning decades and combining character studies with social commentary. Through these stories, she inevitably points back to themes and settings familiar from The Age of Innocence. Continuing her exploration of class and desire, The Glimpses of the Moon addresses marriage and social mobility in early 20th-century America. And in Summer, Wharton challenges societal norms with its rural setting and themes of sexual awakening and social inequality.

Beyond fiction, Wharton contributed compelling nonfiction and travel writing. The Decoration of Houses reflects her eye for design and architecture; Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort presents a compelling account of her wartime observations. As editor of The Book of the Homeless, she curated a moving, international collaboration in support of war refugees.

Wharton’s influence extended beyond writing. She designed her own country estate, The Mount, a testament to her architectural sensibility and aesthetic vision. The Mount now stands as an educational museum celebrating her legacy.

Throughout her career, Wharton maintained friendships and artistic exchanges with luminaries such as Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Theodore Roosevelt—reflecting her status as a respected and connected cultural figure.
Her literary legacy also includes multiple Nobel Prize nominations, underscoring her international recognition. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature more than once.

In sum, Edith Wharton remains celebrated for her unflinching, elegant prose, her psychological acuity, and her capacity to illuminate the unspoken constraints of society—from the glittering ballrooms of New York to quieter, more remote settings. Her wide-ranging work—novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, travel writing, essays—offers cultural insight, enduring emotional depth, and a piercing critique of the customs she both inhabited and dissected.

Reviews

[Lillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing experience it was to read The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence back to back. One written early in Wharton's career and the other at the end. Wharton's writing is luminous and her perspicacious portrait of New York society in the Gilded Age is smart, intelligent, and incisive. We should all read more Wharton!

30 June 2017 Re-reading again for my seminar in Toronto.

[luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |

The House of Mirth: ★★★★✰ 4.5 stars (full review here)
So far this is my favourite novel by Edith Wharton. Lily Bart is an incredibly nuanced character.

The Custom of the Country: ★★★★✰ 4 stars (full review here)
To say that I enjoyed reading The Custom of the Country might be somewhat misleading. Unlike Wharton's other protagonists, Undine Spragg has no redeeming qualities. Yet, throughout the course of the narrative, Wharton presents us with a detailed rendition of America's upper class.

The Age of Innocence: ★★★★✰ 4 stars (full review here)
Unlike the previous novels The Age of Innocence takes place in the late 19th century. Although at times Wharton seems to view this period through rose-tinted lenses, she also brings to the foreground the limitations of its society.

[EA Solinas · Rating 5 out of 5]

America and Europe of the 1800s were stiff, gilded, formal place, full of "old" families, rigid customs and social transgressions.

And nobody chronicled them better than Edith Wharton, who spun exquisitely barbed novels out of the social clashes of the late nineteenth century. "Three Novels of New York: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, The Age of Innocence" contains some of the best work she ever did, exploring the nature of infidelity, passion, social-climbing and a woman's place in an unfriendly world.

"Age of Innocence" is a pretty ironic title. Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating count husband. At first, the two are friends, but then they become something more.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and a safe, dull life?

"The Custom of the Country" takes whatever is biting about Wharton's other works and magnifies it. Undine Spragg is a mesmerizing beauty from a tiny town, who wants the best of everything, more than her family can afford. She begins marrying "old money", leaving divorce, death and broken hearts in her wake -- and hiding a then-shameful secret. The only way to succeed lies in the one man who sees her for what she is.

But the mockery in "House of Mirth" is not meant to be funny, but saddening and eye-opening. Lily Bart is on the prowl for a marriage to keep her in luxury and affluent circles. But her schemes and plans start to collapse, as she rejects all her adoring suitors, and a nasty society matron decides to deflect attention from her adultery by accusing Lily falsely. Her life rapidly descends into a spiral of wretched unemployment and poverty.

Wharton tended to pay attention to three things: human nature, society, and how the two often clashed. These four books are, in fact, crammed with the societal clashes of the time: infidelity, divorce, the impact of "new money," and what it took for a person to break out of the bounds of society -- and the cost it had.

Her writing is striking even now -- it has the formal, detailed quality of nineteenth-century prose, but it isn't nearly as stuffy. Instead, her writing is lush, perfumed languid and shimmering with repressed emotion -- even "Custom of the Country," with its nasty shallow anti-heroine, has moments of pure lyrical beauty, although they usually come from someone else.

And her characters come to life with startling reality. Wharton never resorts to sentimentality or cheap tricks to make us react to them -- stuffy "aristocrats" of the New World, the nouveau riche, and bright bohemians. The more brilliant, appealing characters like the tragic Lily and the free-spirited Countess are easy to feel liking for, but Wharton even makes the less appealing characters -- like the wishy-washy Newland -- realistically complex.

These three novels are among the best that Edith Wharton ever penned -- intricate looks at society and human nature, wrapped up in beautiful writing. Utterly exquisite.

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New York Novels was the first Edith Wharton work/works that I have read. Ms. Wharton, in her day, was a brilliant author. During a time when women authors were not recognized as they should have been, proves the genius they had. Today in 2017, the relevance of those words still have meaning today. These novels made me so angry at the characters but so heartbroken over their shallowness. Lily Bart, Undine Spragg, and Newland Archer, the three main characters in the 3 novels, all broke my heart in different ways. Oh, if Ms Wharton were alive today, what would she have to say about society..........in the words of King Solomon.......there is nothing new under the sun.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the first book in this collection, "The House of Mirth." . . . . it was frustrating and depressing. I have not moved on to either of the others. I do love the old way of writing so I gave it three stars, but I found the inability of the characters to speak truthfully to each other, which would have made their lives soooo much easier in the first place, irritating! But then, I guess that was how it was in those days.

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

All three of these books, especially The Age of Innocence, touch on the timeless hypocrisy of life and society. It amazes me how much hasn't changed since 1900..

[E.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The House of Mirth broke my heart years ago.

[Brad Graber · Rating 4 out of 5]

As part of the New York Times Book Club series - I wanted to read The Custom of the Country - but when I spotted The Age of Innocence - I couldn't help but buy the compilation of Edith Wharton's three novels. So what did I think? Well...the way novels are written has changed quite a bit since Edith Wharton was popular. There are many references throughout her novels that are archaic - but that said - I still enjoyed all three. My favorite was The Age of Innocence. I loved the story as told through the eyes of Archer Newland. A man who understands the absurdity of societal dictates and still sacrifices his true love for another love - only to wonder whether his true love was actually the wife he married. The Custom of the County - a woman's struggle through the social order of New York Society as she progresses ever upward - despite life's challenges. Another interesting peek into the Turn-of-the-Century New York society. My least favorite - House of Mirth - was a sadder tale of opportunities lost. Perhaps, I had enough of Edith Wharton - or maybe - as a reader - I was rooting for the heroine - despite every lost opportunity. Either way, I'd recommend reading that novel first. Get it out of the way to make room for happier fare. That said, Wharton is a marvel. Deeply descriptive...you'll understand her character's motivations and drives - even though they are living at a time that is so carefully structured by the social restrictions of others. Casual readers be warned - this is a much tougher read. But worth it!

[Lena Lighthouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Splendid. You all keep your Jane Austen - these are the true marriage plots in a rigid society. Edith Wharton is brutal. Her heroines are pretty, but that's about all that redeems them.

"The House of Mirth" is like Thomas Hardy in New York. All the bad luck and wrong decisions lead to tragedy. And yet this super-privileged world simply doesn't give one the slightest chance.

"The Custom of the Country" is a masterpiece on narcissism. The protagonist is a capitalist egotist, greedy and never satiated, who burns money, people and cultures as if they were produced in factories. She is one of the great literary monsters in a book that seems to portray current American materialism and celebrity culture. However, due to her and Wharton's nonchalance, her monstrosity only really reveals itself once you've finished. Ruthless and brilliant.

The most famous, "The Age of Innocence", was my least favourite. Partly because it's written from the perspective of a man (ew), a dull one at that, who simply can't decide between two women. It's a very standardised story, although it doesn't make for a sensationalist ending, but a plausible one.

The rich create nonsensical interpersonal systems and rituals in order to give meaning to their hollow lives. Woe betide anyone who doesn't know how to play the game!

[Deana Hamilton-Grummons · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought the Penguin Deluxe edition because I loved the way it looked and then I read the stories it contained. There are three stories in this edition. Wharton's writing style is easy and engaging. The main theme of all these stories is New York Society and marrying not only for money but prestige. Each of the characters have to make their own way up the social ladder. And in most cases, not very successfully. The women in these novels are either cunning or vapid. There is a lot of mistakes made and some tragically.

[John Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Wharton was perhaps the premier novelist of late nineteenth century New York high society.

The heroine of the first novel in this collection - The House of Mirth - is a beautiful woman of good birth. These traits give her entree into the best houses, as well as the attention of numerous suitors. At the same time, her position is tenuous. Her parents are deceased and her financial resources slim. As a result, she must play her cards well to prosper, or even to survive.

This she attempts to do. She also seeks, more or less, to do the right thing and be kind to others. However, she lacks the steely concentration needed to focus on the rules of the game twenty four hours per day, seven days per week, ad infinitum, and to always calculate her behavior accordingly. This inconsistency is a fatal shortcoming in her social milieu, which despite all its apparent refinement operates under the law of the jungle.

The result is a steady decline in the fortunes of our heroine. Eventually, she is forced to become a dressmaker's apprentice, and after she fails at that - as a well-bred young lady, she has no practical skills to rely on - she dies in what may or may not be a suicide.

In contrast, the heroine of the second book - The Custom of the Country - has no redeeming characteristics. This heroine, who carries the somewhat derogatory name of Undine "Undie" Sprague, is selfish, shallow, cold, and narcissistic. At the beginning of the novel, she has just moved with her nouveau riche parents to New York City from the industrial town of Apex, which I took to be in western New York, though the point is not made clear in the book.

Undie sets about using her father's wealth to conquer New York society. She marries the scion of one of the city's old money families. He is well educated, sensitive, and of a poetic turn of mind. Unfortunately, his family no longer has great wealth, so he cannot shower her with jewels and other gifts, which is all she cares about. Undie eventually runs her husband into the ground with her incessant demands, leaving her free to move on.

Undine moves on and up to marry a count who is heir to one of Europe's great names. Unfortunately, he too does not have the financial resources to keep up with the new industrialists who are in the process of taking over the economy on both continents. When Undie demands that her new husband sell a set of priceless tapestries that have been in his family for generations to pay for her fun, he patiently and wearily explains that he cannot part with the family legacy built up over so much time.

The action then cuts back to New York. It soon becomes apparent that Undine has divorced the count and married Elmer Moffatt, an acquaintance from her hometown of Apex, where he was a layabout and pool-hall hustler. Undine had impulsively married him as a teenager, but her parents forced her to divorce and covered up the marriage to preserve her social prospects. Later, after Elmer also moved to New York, he prospered in the financial markets, where a smart operator with shady ethics could make millions. His new-found wealth makes him more than acceptable as a spouse, and Undie marries him once again.

The final scene shows Undine taking delivery of the very same tapestries her previous husband had not been willing to sell, but which Elmer subsequently had been able to purchase. The financial imperatives of the new age had crushed the count as well, leaving the irredeemably boorish Undine and Elmer to reep the rewards.

The Custom of the Country makes clear the author's disdain for her own city and social class. That disdain, no doubt, explains why Wharton spent most of her adult life living in Europe while she wrote the novels that critiqued that class so incisively.

The third novel in the collection - The Age of Innocence - is a novel of missed opportunities and backward glances. Ellen Olenska, former New Yorker who had married a Polish nobleman and lived abroad for a number of years, returns after divorcing her husband. There she meets Newland Archer, a gentleman lawyer who is heir to one of New York's best families. Newland, who is engaged to a rather vacuous young woman who also hails from one of New York society's top families, realizes that Ellen is his soul-mate. However, he does the "proper" thing and marries his fiance rather than breaking it off in favor of Ellen, who is viewed with suspicion by upper-crust New Yorkers because of her foreign connections and habits. Ellen eventually returns to Europe to live out her days.

Years later, after his wife conveniently has died, Newland visits his son in Paris. When the son learns that his mother's cousin (Ellen) lives there, he arranges to see her at her apartment. Newland initially is thrilled at the chance to see her again. When they arrive at her building, however, Newland sends his son up by himself, and eventually returns to his hotel without seeing Ellen, evidently having decided that too much water had passed under the bridge to rekindle their old relationship.

The Age of Innocence won a well-deserved Pulitzer Prize when it was published in 1921. Years later, Martin Scorcese made the book into a very good movie - in my opinion, his best outside the blue-collar-and-gangland New York milieu in which he normally specializes, and better than most of his films inside that milieu, too.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Age of Innocence:

Memorable and moving. A delightful and appropriate ending. A lovely and haunting read.

The House of Mirth:

Although it is a bit transparent, moralistic and histrionic, I love her descriptions of inner torment and it's rare to meet an omniscient narrator who has as much respect for her characters as Wharton. I loved this book. Her management of tension was superb and her characters carefully drawn. A delight.


The Custom of the Country:

Frustrating because of how well written the penetrations into Undine Spragg's psyche are. Definitely not my favorite but still well worth the read.

After reading all three I'm in love with Wharton's imagination and management of tone. Her characters are never perfect - making them only seldom likeable, but she knew what she was doing. It's hard to read these novels and not learn something about others, yourself, or human nature.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished The Custom of the Country. Almost stopped reading as the characters seemed so unlikeable. But worth plowing through. Wharton is very wry in her observations of the power dynamics operating in all relationships, love, courtship, marriage, business...all.

[Sarah Spell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really like a 3.5 stars.

[Lisa Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed all 3 books but surprisingly did not prefer the 1921 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Age of Innocence with its male protagonist.

[Lucas Rocklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Special books

[Joan Koster · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you watched the Gilded Age series, you will find Edith Wharton captures the inner workings of that very rigid society through a graceful unfolding of prose.

[Jess Foley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edith Wharton is Queen. That is all.

[Cberkowitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book represents ten years of my life

[Whimsical · Rating 4 out of 5]

House of Mirth.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

The House of Mirth

"'Why do you do this to me?' she cried. 'Why do you make the thingsI have chosen seem hateful to me, if you have nothing to give me instead?' [...] and he said to himself, somewhat cruelly, that even her weeping was an art. The reflection steadied his voice as he asked, between pity and irony: 'Isn't it natural that I should try to belittle all the things I can't offer you?'"

" it is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful."

"Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock."

~~book husbands

The Custom of the Country

"Her husband stood looking at her coldly and curiously, as though she were some alien apparition his eyes had never before beheld.
'Ah, that's your answer - that's all you feel when you lay handson things that are sacred to us!' [...] 'And you're all alike,', he exclaimed, 'every one of you. You come among us from a country we don't know, and can't imagine, a country you care so little that before you've been a day in ours you've forgotten the very house you were born in-if it wasn't torn down before you knew it! You come among us speaking our language and not knowing what we mean; wanting the things we want, and not knowing why we want them; aping our weaknesses, exaggerating our follies, ignoring or ridiculing all we care about-you come from hotels as big as towns , and from towns as flimsy as paper, where the streets haven't had time to be named, and the buildings are demolished before they're dry, and the people are proud of changing as we are of holding to what we have-and we're fools enough to imagine that because you copy our ways and pick up our slanf you understand anything about the things that make life decent and honourable for us!'"

"But under all the dazzle a tiny black cloud remained. She had learned that there was something she could never get, something that neither beauty nor influence not millions could ever buy for her. She could never be an Ambassador's wife; and as she advanced to welcome her first guests she said to herself that it was the one part she was really made for."

The Age of Innocence

"Human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile. And he felt himself oppressed by this creation of factitious purity, so cunningly manufactured by a conspiracy of mothers and aunts and grandmothers and long-dead ancestresses, because it was supposed to be what he wanted, what he had a right to, in order that he might exercise his lordly pleasure in smashing it like an image made of snow."

"There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free."


“'Yes: the day before she died. It was when she sent for me alone-you remember? She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted.'
Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window. At length he said in a low voice: 'She never asked me.'
'No. I forgot. You never did ask each other anything, did you? And never told each other anything. You just sat and watched each other , and guessed at what was going on underneath. [...] Well, I back your generation for knowing more about each other's private thoughts than we ever have time to find out about our own.'"

"His father smiled again. 'Say I'm old-fashioned: that's enough.'"

[Marilyn Fontane · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Custom of the Country and Other Classic Novels by Edith Wharton contains her three best-known novels: The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country, and The Age of Innocence. Since The Age of Innocence is the novel Edith Wharton (or any woman) received the first Pulitzer Prize for, I decided to start there. I'll probably stop there too, although I will keep the book for awhile just in case I decide to read one of the other two. The Age of Innocence, while not my favorite read, didn't totally destroy any possibility I would read more Wharton--just made it unlikely.
Set in the 1871, the Gilded Age, in New York, Wharton describes the boredom, rigidity, and incuriosity of the people of that society. Newland Archer, the completely un-heroic protagonist, is a member of that society, who sees through its hypocrisy; yet marries May Welland, the beautiful, insipid, standard of its values, instead of leaving her and going after the woman he truly loves, May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. Instead, he agonizes, dreams, pretends to plan, and lets his (and her) life go on. She moves to Paris, and he and May have 5 children. After May dies, he and his oldest son, to whom May has told of his father's passion, go to Paris. The son goes to meet Ellen while Newland stays away and dreams--it is what he has spent his life doing.
Yes, New York of the era is nicely described, the social structure and customs of the era are nicely described, the odd personality of Newland Archer is nicely described. In fact all three are beautifully described; the reader can learn a lot. If it is what you want to learn.

[Mindy Conde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished The Age of Innocence. I read The House of Mirth years ago and loved it, but hadn't read anything else by Wharton until now. I thought that this was a really humorous and interesting look at New York Society. It was rather different than the serious and sometimes upsetting story of The House of Mirth, but I quite enjoyed it. It did seem to drag a bit at the beginning until you began to differentiate the characters and recognize who was who. By far, the best part of the novel is the bittersweet ending. In a few simple passages it questions everything about the Society it has depicted, at the same time as recognizing it as a necessary evil, so to speak. With the way that the characters ended up and who ended up with who, I expected to be angry at the end, but instead I felt sympathy for the characters that were trapped in that Society. It was definitely sad, but a very interesting look at how the glitz and glamour of upper crust society can sometimes turn into the very cage that entraps its members. I'm sure there is much else to say - in fact, I know there is as there are likely countless articles on this novel - but I'll leave it here for now. I would certainly recommend The House of Mirth as the #1 must-read of Wharton's work, but this is a great novel to show a very different element of her work as well. I quite enjoyed it.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

So...what can I say about Custom of the Country and The House of Mirth. Well, I the book (they were both in the same collection) across the room on more than one occasion. The characters make you crazy, but you can't stop reading. The Age of Innocence was also excellent. I think I threw that one only once.

[Jean Nicolazzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Except for The Custom of the Country, which was utterly inferior, I would give these volumes five stars. Lily Bart and Ellen Olenska are two of my favorite fictional characters (along with Anna Karenina and Becky Sharpe - could there be a pattern here?), and it's good to be reminded of how few options women had not too long ago.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can' t find The Custom of the Country by itself here, but I just recently read it based on a New Yorker article about Edith Wharton. The arricle argued that the novel rivals The Great Gatsby as a commenraey on early 29th century America. I read The Age of Innocence within the last year and am currently re-reading House of Mirth.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A trip to Edith Wharton's home in New England inspired me to read up, and the Three Novels of Old New York were classic tales of Wharton-era Manhattan: down-on-their-luck ladies, impetuous young men, unwanted pregnancies... You know, stuff we don't have anymore in the 21st century.

[Stacie Hamilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edith Wharton did a good job of painting a picture of New York in the 1800’s. Her description of the society and how people was dressed was pretty interesting. My favorite of her three stories is “Age of Innocence.”

[Cici · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very heavy without hope stories