The House of Mirth

　　Lily Bart is twenty-nine, beautiful and charming. She has expensive tastes, loves to gamble and socializes with the wealthy upper-class families of New York. But her meagre finances are dwindling and her place in society is slipping away from her. Her only hope of security is to find a suitable husband. However, Lily has an independence of spirit that stands in the way of her committing to the suitors available to her. As her options diminish, her friends become her enemies and her situation grows increasing perilous.

　　In The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton gives us a witty and piercingly insightful dark satire about the privileged society of early twentieth-century New York.
This beautiful Macmillan Collector's Library edition of The House of Mirth features an introduction by novelist Danuta Reah.

　　Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

作者簡介

伊迪絲．華頓 Edith Wharton, 1862～1937

　　原名為伊迪絲．紐博．瓊斯（Edith Newbold Jones），出身於富裕的上層階級，伊迪絲．華頓年幼時與父母一起遊歷歐洲，之後隨同父母返回美國定居，在紐約、紐波時的羅德島享受富裕的童年。不久她 就展露出創作天賦，十八歲即完成一則短篇故事（Fast and Loose），並且在《大西洋月刊》（Atlantic Monthly）發表詩歌。

　　經歷一段備受男方母親阻撓的訂婚之後，伊迪絲．華頓與富裕的運動家艾德華．華頓（Edward Wharton）結婚，儘管與夫婿擁有相似的出身背景、旅遊方面的品味也相同，這樁婚姻還是由於丈夫出軌，以失敗告終。

　 　華頓的第一本小說《歡樂之家》（The House of Mirth, 1905），小說出版後受到矚目，獲得文學上的成功，六年之後的《伊桑．弗洛姆》（Ethan Frome, 1911）奠定華頓身為重要小說家的名聲。華頓一生的摯友是知名作家亨利．詹姆斯（Henry James），而在1920文學的金色年代，她往來的對象多是作家、藝術家，例如費茲傑羅（F. Scott Fitzgerald）、安德列．纪德（Andre Gide）、辛克萊．路易斯（Sinclair Lewis）、尚．考克多（Jean Cocteau）、傑克．倫敦（Jack London）。

　　1913年，伊迪絲與丈夫離婚，此後餘生多在法國度過。第一次世界大戰爆發後，伊迪絲組織起慈善收容所，以安置難民。她在戰爭期間的善行讓她獲得騎士榮譽勛號。

　 　1920年，出版《純真年代》（The Age of Innocence），隔年旋即榮獲普立茲獎，華頓是第一位獲此殊榮的女性作家。為了鼓勵年輕作家，她的足跡遍布歐洲各地。每天早晨，她都習慣斜躺在床上 寫作，一如往常，她擲下每一頁剛落筆完成的紙片，當寫作告一段落，就可拾起這些紙頁以編排成書。

　　經歷一場嚴重的中風後，1937年8月11日，華頓離世，長埋於法國凡爾賽的美國人的墓地。

　 　Edith Wharton was born in 1862 to a prominent and wealthy New York family. In 1885 she married Boston socialite 'Teddy' Wharton but the marriage was unhappy and they divorced in 1913. The couple travelled frequently to Europe and settled in France, where Wharton stayed until her death in 1937. Her first major novel was The House of Mirth (1905); many short stories, travel books, memoirs and novels followed, including Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912) and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which she won the Pulitzer Prize. She was thrice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and was decorated for her humanitarian work during the First World War.