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Classics Book Club: The House of Mirth

Thursday, August 27, 2026
10:30 am11:30 am

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905, 320 pages)
August 27, 2026

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton tells the story of Lily Bart, a 29-year-old woman who is beautiful, impoverished, and in need of a wealthy husband to secure her place in the social elite and support her extravagant habits, including her clothes, charities, and gambling. Unwilling to marry without both love and money, Lily becomes vulnerable to the kind of gossip and slander that attaches to a girl who has been on the marriage market for too long. Wharton charts the course of Lily's life, providing, along the way, a broader picture of a society in transition —a rapidly changing New York where the old certainties of manners, morals, and family have given way, and the individual has become an expendable commodity.

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