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  • Published: 25 October 2005
  • ISBN: 9781101554883
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 128

Ethan Frome




The new paperback series: Penguin English Library

Edith Wharton’s most widely read work is a tightly constructed and almost unbearably heartbreaking story of forbidden love in a snowbound New England village.
 
This brilliantly wrought, tragic novella explores the repressed emotions and destructive passions of working-class people far removed from the elevated social milieu usually inhabited by Wharton’s characters. Ethan Frome is a poor farmer, trapped in a marriage to a demanding and controlling wife, Zeena. When Zeena’s young cousin Mattie enters their household she opens a window of hope in Ethan’s bleak life, but his wife’s reaction prompts a desperate attempt to escape fate that goes horribly wrong. Ethan Frome is an unforgettable story with the force of myth, featuring realistic and haunting characters as vivid as any Wharton ever conjured.

  • Published: 25 October 2005
  • ISBN: 9781101554883
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 128

Other books in the series

The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
A Dog's Heart
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
On Sparta
Venus in Furs
Man and Superman
Botchan
Military Dispatches

About the author

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was born in New York City on January 24, 1862. Edith married Teddy Wharton, who was 12 years older. They lived a life of relative ease with homes in New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Edith became a prolific writer and produced over 40 books in 40 years. Edith divorced Teddy in 1912, having no immediate heirs, and never married again. She was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, and a full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novels became so popular that Ms. Wharton was able to live comfortably on her earnings the rest of her life. Edith continued to write until a stroke took her life in August 1937.

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