Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905) is a sharp and satirical, but also sensitive and tragic analysis of a young, single woman trying to find her place in a materialistic and unforgiving society. The House of Mirth offers a fascinating insight into the culture of the time and, as suggested by the success of recent film adaptations, it is also an enduring tale of love, ambition and social pressures still relevant today. Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of The House of Mirth and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Wharton's text.

First published in 1899, "The Awakening"'s engagement with taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity prompted a flurry of damning reviews that sent the book out of print and int obscurity for several decades. However, it is now hailed as a key early feminist text and has become one of the most widely studied works of American literature.
This" Sourcebook "combines accessible commentary with reprinted documents to provide the ideal introduction to the novel. Its first section, "Contexts" provides biographical information on Chopin and explores 1890s American society to reveal the contextual backdrop to her work. The editors pay particular attention to Chopin's Louisiana Creole heritage and to the expectations of women in this era. "Interpretations" begins with an overview of the critical reception of the novel and then introduces extracts from important early reviews and contemporary criticism. Readers are carefully guided through a range of crucial issues from Chopin'streatment of female sexuality to the influence of Darwinism on her writing. The following section, "Key Passages," reproduces selected chapters fof the original text, along with extensive commentary. These commentaries equip readers to make connections with the critical and contextual issues raised earlier in the Sourcebook and to initiate engaged, informed, individual new analyses of Chopin's text. A concluding "Further Reading" section is provided for those wishing to extend their work on the novel.
Offering a perfectly judged selection of reprinted materials and insightful, refreshingly clear commentary, this volume will greatly enrich any reading of "The Awakening,"

First published in 1899, "The Awakening"'s engagement with taboo issues of female sexuality and infidelity prompted a flurry of damning reviews that sent the book out of print and int obscurity for several decades. However, it is now hailed as a key early feminist text and has become one of the most widely studied works of American literature.
This" Sourcebook "combines accessible commentary with reprinted documents to provide the ideal introduction to the novel. Its first section, "Contexts" provides biographical information on Chopin and explores 1890s American society to reveal the contextual backdrop to her work. The editors pay particular attention to Chopin's Louisiana Creole heritage and to the expectations of women in this era. "Interpretations" begins with an overview of the critical reception of the novel and then introduces extracts from important early reviews and contemporary criticism. Readers are carefully guided through a range of crucial issues from Chopin'streatment of female sexuality to the influence of Darwinism on her writing. The following section, "Key Passages," reproduces selected chapters fof the original text, along with extensive commentary. These commentaries equip readers to make connections with the critical and contextual issues raised earlier in the Sourcebook and to initiate engaged, informed, individual new analyses of Chopin's text. A concluding "Further Reading" section is provided for those wishing to extend their work on the novel.
Offering a perfectly judged selection of reprinted materials and insightful, refreshingly clear commentary, this volume will greatly enrich any reading of "The Awakening,"

The First World War was a transformative experience for women, facilitating their entry into new spaces and alternative spheres of activity, both on the home front and on the edges of danger zones in Europe and beyond. The centenary of the conflict is an appropriate moment to reassess what we choose to remember about women's roles and responsibilities in this period and how women recorded their experiences. It is timely to (re)consider the narratives of women's involvement not only as nurses, VADs and mourning mothers, but as pacifist campaigners, poets, war correspondents and contributors to developing genres of war writing. This interdisciplinary volume examines women's representations of wartime experience across a wide range of genres, including modernist fiction, ghost stories, utopia, poetry, life-writing and journalism. Contributors provide fresh perspectives on women's written responses to the conflict, exploring women's war work, constructions of femininity and the maternal in wartime, and the relationship between feminism, suffrage and pacifism. The volume reinforces the importance of the retrieval of women's wartime experience, urging us to rethink what we choose to commemorate and widening the presence of women in the expanding canon of war writing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women's Writing.

Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth (1905) is a sharp and satirical, but also sensitive and tragic analysis of a young, single woman trying to find her place in a materialistic and unforgiving society. The House of Mirth offers a fascinating insight into the culture of the time and, as suggested by the success of recent film adaptations, it is also an enduring tale of love, ambition and social pressures still relevant today.

Including a selection of illustrations from the original magazine publication, which offers a unique insight to what the contemporary reader would have seen, this volume also provides:

• an accessible introduction to the text and contexts of The House of Mirth
• a critical history, surveying the many interpretations of the text from publication to the present
• a selection of new critical essays on the The House of Mirth, by Edie Thornton, Katherine Joslin, Janet Beer, Elizabeth Nolan, Kathy Fedorko and Pamela Knights, providing a range of perspectives on the novel and extending the coverage of key critical approaches identified in the survey section
• cross-references between sections of the guide, in order to suggest links between texts, contexts and criticism
• suggestions for further reading.

Part of the Routledge Guides to Literature series, this volume is essential reading for all those beginning detailed study of The House of Mirth and seeking not only a guide to the novel, but a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Wharton's text.