With this novel about the anguish of loving, and society's brutal treatment of those who transgress its codes, Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Summer is a novel by Edith Wharton published in 1917 by Charles Scribner's Sons. The story is one of only two novels to be set in New England by Wharton, who was best known for her portrayals of upper-class New York society. The novel details the sexual awakening of its protagonist, Charity Royall, and her cruel treatment by the father of her child, and shares many plot similarities with Wharton's better-known novel, Ethan Frome. Only moderately well received when originally published, Summer has had a resurgence in critical popularity since the 1960s. (wikipedia.org)

The House of Mirth (1905), by Edith Wharton, is the story of Lily Bart, a well-born, but penniless woman of the high society of New York City, who was raised and educated to become wife to a rich man, a hothouse flower for conspicuous consumption. As an unmarried woman with gambling debts and an uncertain future, Lily is destroyed by the society who created her. Written in the style of a novel of manners, The House of Mirth was the fourth novel by Edith Wharton (1862-1937), which tells the story of Lily Bart against the background of the high-society of upper class New York City of the 1890s;...