The House of Mirth cover art

The House of Mirth

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 months free
Try for £0.00
£8.99/mo thereafter. Renews automatically. Terms apply. Offer ends 31 July 2025 at 23:59 GMT.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

The House of Mirth

By: Edith Wharton
Narrated by: Anna Fields
Try for £0.00

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Offer ends 31 July 2025 23:59 GMT. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
Switch payment method
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

 The House of Mirth was Edith Wharton's first great novel. Set among the elegant brownstones of New York City and opulent country houses like gracious Bellomont on the Hudson, the novel creates a satiric portrayal of what Wharton herself called "a society of irresponsible pleasure-seekers" with a precision comparable to that of Proust. And her brilliant and complex characterization of the doomed Lily Bart, whose stunning beauty and dependence on marriage for economic survival reduce her to a decorative object, becomes an incisive commentary on the nature and status of women in that society.(P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Glimpses of the Moon cover art
The Reef cover art
Old New York cover art
Anna of the Five Towns cover art
Ethan Frome cover art
The Age of Innocence cover art
The Aspern Papers (BBC Radio 4 Book At Bedtime) cover art
Roderick Hudson cover art
Cousin Phillis cover art
The Portrait of a Lady cover art
The Golden Bowl cover art
Anna Karenina cover art
Middlemarch cover art
Jane Eyre cover art
Daisy Miller cover art
Good Behaviour cover art
All stars
Most relevant  
The purposeful Lily Bart navigates her way through the wallets and wills of turn of the century New York in a timeless picaresque that would see her appearing on next week's Location, Location, Location....brandishing the proceeds of an elderly relative's post-mortem property boom bequest, in search of a sea view and a pair of floral designer flip-flops.
That Edith Wharton, the equal of Henry James, was in but not of Lily's type and society is the ray of hope in this novel. The boorish Gus Trenor and the dilettante Lawrence Selden are delivered unexpurgated - two sides of the same dollar. It's an enjoyable compleat that takes the listener fully into the House of Mirth - where the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
Really enjoyable for a first time Wharton-ite!


Credit crunch 1900s.......thoroughly modern Lily

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is a wonderful novel and is beautifully read by Anna Fields; she is particularly good at doing convincing male voices.
As has already been pointed out, the reading starts with a long introduction by R. W. B. Lewis, Wharton's biographer. This is a good essay on the novel but should be listened to after hearing the novel, since it gives away much of the plot. The novel itself starts at 31 minutes.

Excellent reading of a fine novel

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is an excellent book, well read, but beware. The reading includes the full text of the introduction to the novel. It gives away the ending, so if you don't want to know what happens, fast forward through to the start of the novel.

Warning

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.