Edith Wharton (1862-1937), born Edith Newbold Jones, was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humourous and incisive novels and short stories. Wharton was well-acquainted with many of her era's literary and public figures, including Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt. Besides her writing, she was a highly regarded landscape architect, interior designer, and taste-maker of her time. She wrote several influential books, including The Decoration of Houses (1897), her first published work, and Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904). The Age of Innocence (1920), perhaps her best known work, won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making her the first woman to win the award. Her other works include: The Greater Inclination (1899), The Touchstone (1900), Sanctuary (1903), The Descent of Man, and Other Stories (1904), The House of Mirth (1905), Madame De Treymes (1907), The Fruit of the Tree (1907), The Hermit and the Wild Woman, and Other Stories (1908), Ethan Frome (1912), In Morocco (1921), and The Glimpses of the Moon (1921).

Public Domain (P)1988 Jimcin Recordings

Listening Length

3 hours and 47 minutes
Author

Edith Wharton
Narrator

Jim Killavey
Audible release date

July 15, 2008
Language

English
Publisher

Jimcin Recordings
ASIN

B001CRSPJI
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length	3 hours and 47 minutes
Author	Edith Wharton
Narrator	Jim Killavey
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	July 15, 2008
Publisher	Jimcin Recordings
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B001CRSPJI
Best Sellers Rank	#136,365 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #3,983 in Classic Literature (Audible Books & Originals) #16,342 in Classic Literature & Fiction #32,777 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer reviews

5 star		66%
4 star		18%
3 star		9%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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Darlene Thomas

Tragic Story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 6, 2022

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I was under the impression that this book was considered shocking. Maybe it was at the time it was written. As another reader said, now they’d have murdered the wife so they could be together. It was so sad that they couldn’t be together. I guess they were in the end but not the way they wanted.

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Cody W.

Good story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 30, 2022

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This was an excellent audio book. I really liked the reading and it made you feel like you were living in the small, cold town. The ending was a huge bummer , but it was a good read.

Helpful

An enjoyable tragic story

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 10, 2021

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A novel written at the beginning of last century about a man seen every day in town, looking defeated, discouraged, and with no zest for life. Nobody wants to talk about him, and only mention is made that his life is a tragedy. Finally, facts unfold and we discover that Ethan was married to a dominating woman, Zeeda, and fell in love with Mattie, a relative of Zeeda's who went to live with them to help her because "she could do nothing". The decisions made by each of these 3 characters will play a significant role in this tragedy. It is a tragic romantic story, and although it is so depressing, I enjoyed it because it is very well written.

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George Conley

Amazing Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 4, 2022

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It's hard to believe that this book was written in 1911. The prose is crisp and descriptive and can easily be understood by and related to by a modern audience. I'm really glad I gave it a chance !

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Jacque

This book will both make and ruin your life

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 5, 2013

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THIS BOOK! I can't even fully describe in a review my feelings on this book because they are so intense that i would probably exceed the word limit.
I read this book in high school and it is truly so beautiful and well written that when certain things transpired i quite literally threw my book at a wall and broke it in half because of my sheer fury at Edith Wharton who obviously wanted me to feel like a black pit of despair.

PRO's :
This book will change you as a person.
The book is so well written that it will make you a better writer just by having read it.
Edith Wharton knows how to write an amazing unconventional love story that you will feel so vividly that you will think you are one of the characters.
This is probably one of the greatest books ever written

CON's:
SPOILER: (it might not have the happiest of endings)
This book will make you think that you are skipping around in a beautiful field of daises of joy and laughter and wonderment heading towards happily ever after highway - then out of nowhere because WE LIVE IN A CRUEL CRUEL WORLD you will realize that you are NOT headed to happily ever highway but actually to the darkest pit of despair and agony and horrific pain that you will wonder why did you ever want to read this book in the first place? You will wonder if your whole life is a LIE because nothing ever turns out as it seems.
When you are done reading this book you will probably need a glass of wine, or a sedative, or a marathon of your favorite comedy tv show because you will feel like a dark cloud of torment and woe sits over you mocking your once faith in humanity and literature.
You will never again trust any book as "safe" because as dear old Edith has taught us, writers love your misery.

So overall i would highly recommend this book

18 people found this helpful

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John Doe

The Story Will Draw You In

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 21, 2021

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I bought this book because of a chapter in Karen Swallow Prior's On Reading Well. That enticed me to read the book and I wasn't disappointed. Except for the introduction, that is. You won't lose anything by skipping it. If I had read only the introduction before reading the novel, I probably wouldn't have read it. I enjoyed being a reader, but the introduction would have me be a critic instead. You could read the story in an afternoon, but don't: take your time and savor it. Enjoy the story, even though it is a tragedy; I think the introduction will ruin your reading enjoyment. Like all Penguin books, this one was well-made, easy to read, and has a comfortable typeface.

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Dianna Longoria

Our twisted lives.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 18, 2022

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It kept me reading straight through. I can't help but wonder if Ethan wasn't so stricken to speak his mind and do what he wanted.

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resol

Fates worse than Death for Adultery

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 30, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is the 2nd time I licensed / read Ethan Frome, it was required reading for me in HSPA. And I did not understand the purpose. I think I understand better now. Or stalwart on this reading I'm getting a certain interpretation.

I think the blue-blooded , hypochondriac dominatrix Zeena has meuncher's syndrome. She is put our and threatened by her pauper cousin Mattie, and this hatred is in conjunction with being married to Ethan, both keeping her from her preferred elitist lifestyle. Unsure if Zeena knew, or suspected Ethan and Mattie's adultery. If she did not , she achieved the same goal of punishing both of them by sending Mattie away.

Yet, though its a tragedy that both Ethan and Mattie lived, it is also a fitting revenge best served cold on Zeena. It's also tragic how sweet lovable and admirable Mattie, switched personalities with Zeena.

5 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Les Miserables

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 17, 2018

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Ethan Frome, a mild mannered yet weak willed young man, trudges through his days in a haze of hopelessness; trapped in a lifeless union with a mean and sinister hypochondriac, and committed to a lifetime of pointless drudgery, his work being barely above the breadline. Yet he continues to allow his wife her expensive foibles and medicinal remedies, instead of playing her at her own game. By nature, far from being a confrontational person, his fear and cowardice thwart his every move. And family illnesses put paid to any ambitions of study he may have nursed while still possible. His spirit, long since broken comes to life in the form of Mattie, the only silver lining in a storm of ever blackening clouds. Though her banishment from the house was only the beginning of his inevitable nightmare. A stronger minded alpha male would have given short shrift to the likes of Zeena and her manipulative schemes, and left her in the hands of her large family for a while, and find his fortune elsewhere. Young and strong, he had the world at his feet. His kindness and generosity though is demonstrated in the frequent demonstrations of affection for his colleagues and the faithful horses who shared the cruel and unendurable Starkfield winters. Years of bland frustration, emotional turmoil wrapped up in rage and buried deep, eventually burst forth in his misguided adoration of Mattie, herself a victim of sad circumstances. Together their unfortunate plan of escape proved the opposite, and as fate would have it...

One person found this helpful

Lucy Ingram

American classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 28, 2009

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This is a brilliant short story, perfectly pitched, by one of the USA's best authors. It has a resonance that goes far beyond the main narrative, and some beautiful lyrical passages.

One of the things I like best about it is that there are no black and white answers to the moral questions it poses. Does Ethan's unfriendly wife Zeena deserve the harsh portrayal the story gives her, or should she be pitied? How far is Ethan the victim of circumstances, and how far is he responsible for his own downfall? The book ends without resolving these questions, but the implications of its story will send shivers down your spine.

mrs_t

wonderful insight into human emotions

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 12, 2008

Verified Purchase

I love this book..when it first arrived i was a bit disappointed because it looked so short (hundred and so pages) but it's pure quality and evokes such a amazing atmosphere of repression, confinement, depression and excitement of new love...with the outcome being so unexpected yet so ...powerful you think of it for days after.Amazing highly recommend (unless you want a light, chirpy book then go for something else!)

James Richards

Tragic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 30, 2018

Verified Purchase

This was just... Incredibly sad to read.

Truly a tragedy.

So much resentment and love. This stirred up all sorts of emotions.

Incredible. Well worth reading.

Thomas Christopher Shields

Book relating the morals of its time

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

Characters trapped by financial circumstances and the ethics of their society. Genteel drama. Anti climactic ending SPOILER ALERT. Modern day would've seen a murder thrown in instead of attempted joint suicide.

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