Summer, Edith Wharton wrote to Gaillard Lapsley, "is known to its author and her familars as the Hot Ethan." One of the first American novels to deal frankly with a young woman's sexual awakening, it was a publishing sensation when it appeared in 1917, praised by Joseph Conrad, Howard Sturgis, and Percy Lubbock, and favorably compared to Madame Bovary. Like its predecessor, Ethan Frome, it is set in the Berkshires, but the season is summer and the story is that of Charity Royall, a New Englander of humble origins -- passionate, forthright, and proud -- and her torrid affair with Lucius Harney, an artistically inclined young man from the city. A novel that "breaks, or stretches, many conventions of women's romantic love stories and in the process creates a new picture of female sexuality," as Marilyn French writes in her introduction, Summer is "a clamorous and ecstatic affirmation of the joy of sexual love no matter what it costs." Bold in conception, rich in imagery, and provocative by implication, it was one of Edith Wharton's personal favorites, and stands as one of her greatest novelistic achievements
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American literature during the Gilded Age gained some of its most incisive social commentary through realistic portrayals of upper-class New York society, exemplified by the novel The Age of Innocence (1920). Edith Wharton drew directly from her insider knowledge of elite social circles to examine the rigid moral codes and social strictures imposed upon individuals during this era. Her novel won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making her the first woman to win the award for fiction.
Born Edith Newbold Jones in New York City in 1862, Wharton was raised in a tightly controlled society where women were discouraged from achieving beyond a proper marriage. Encouraged in her childhood literary endeavors, she wrote her first novel as a teenager under the pen name David Oliveri. She married Edward Wharton in 1885 and lived in Newport, Rhode Island, before settling in Europe in 1907. Fluent in French as well as several other languages, Wharton was a prolific novelist, short story writer, and designer who saw many of her books published in both French and English. During World War I, she helped organize the American Hostel for Refugees and the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, receiving the French Legion of Honor in 1916 and Belgium's Order of Leopold in 1919. Over a career spanning four decades, she published over forty books, earned an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University in 1923, and became a full member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Wharton's fiction is recognized for its careful narrative form, sharp social satire, and deep concern with ethical dilemmas. Drawing on her expertise as a designer and co-author of non-fiction works on architecture, interior design, and travel, she created realistic settings that reflected the social stratifications of her subjects. Her recurring themes explore the struggle between personal inclination and social duty, the systemic constraints placed on women, and the rigid expectations of high society. She applied these stylistic strengths across multiple forms, from tragic short novels such as Ethan Frome and Summer to broad social studies like The House of Mirth and complex short stories including Roman Fever.
