Showing results by author "Edith Wharton" in All Categories

A superb collection of classic short stories showcasing the variety, depth and imagination of great Victorian writers.

Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin who has been living in Europe.

Charity Royall, a young New England woman of humble origins, meets and falls in love with the worldly Lucius Harney, an architect from the city. In evocative and descriptive prose, Edith Wharton conveys the ecstasy of Charity's first experience in sexual and romantic love, and pulls her heroine through the throes of loving a man who ultimately cannot choose her. Wharton's tale elicits the passion and despair of all great but ill-fated love affairs and enthralls the contemporary audience with its pathos just as it did nearly 100 years ago.

Written in 1892 but not published until 1916, this beautifully crafted story features two sisters who keep a shop in a shabby part of New York City. When Ann Eliza, the eldest sister, gifts Evelina with a clock on her birthday, events are set in motion which will forever change not only their relationship but the very fabric of their world.

Selected Shorts is an award-winning series of classic and contemporary short fiction read by acclaimed actors. The readings are recorded live at Peter Norton Symphony Space in New York City. The Selected Shorts radio series is a co-production of Symphony Space and WNYC, New York Public Radio, and is heard on public radio stations nationwide.

A couple looks for a new home in southern England—but it has to be haunted. They stay in the legendary house of Lyng, where it is said that the inhabitants don’t know that they’ve encountered the ghost until long afterward. Artfully crafted in five different parts, Wharton spins an ironic story of greed, guilt, and revenge.

"Afterward" is a psychological ghost story of the Victorian era. This is no modern horror tale, but one that was very popular at a time when a shiver and some things to think about were what was expected of the horror genre. Wharton's beautiful prose, as read by professional actor Sara Morsey, will delight and thrill. Sit back and enjoy!

Newland Archer, that paragon of Gilded Age New York, seems bound for a life of privilege with an ideal companion, May Welland. Then a childhood friend, the free-thinking, passionate Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe. In charged encounters between these three and a large cast of unforgettable characters, Edith Wharton elaborates on a timeless theme, the clash between the need to belong and the urge to leap beyond oneself. An American by birth and an expatriate by choice, the author probes her own youthful origins in this winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize in Literature.

Having been born into a life of wealth and privilege, Edith Wharton was part of the small clique of aristocratic families that held sway over New York City's social and cultural life at the turn of the nineteenth century. In The Age of Innocence, Wharton looks back fondly on the life that was enjoyed by the privileged class of the East Coast before the many changes wrought by World War I.

A New York 'it' girl, Lily Bart is a beauty of slender means and costly tastes, sought after at all the high society parties in town. Her outstanding looks and charm make it a given that she will soon be married to a man of exceptional wealth and status. One by one, the multimillionaires she meets fall at her feet, but somehow Lily finds herself incapable of making a purely mercenary match and so finds herself caught up in a destructive tussle between her emotional and financial needs.

The Spraggs, a wealthy family of Midwesterners, are visiting New York City to marry off their beautiful daughter Undine. While Undine's beauty catches the attention of several high-society men, she finds it difficult to fit in with the old-money social circles that rule New York. When she finally marries Ralph Marvell, she embraces a life full of frivolities, which eventually leads to her tumultuous demise.

Penned in 1899 by Edith Wharton, this short story features the proper Mrs. Carstyle; her husband, Mr. Carstyle; and their daughter, Irene, who are all are taken with their guest and an eligible bachelor named Vibart. Narrator John Chancer is a film and television actor with professional readings of many audiobooks to his credit.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and short story writer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. 'The Lady's Maid's Bell' is a classic ghost story about Alice Hartley, a servant who takes up a new position in a remote country house as companion to an invalid lady. Almost immediately she realises that there is something not quite right in the house.

A thoroughly engaging collection of great classic tales by the very best American authors. 1. 'From Beyond' by H. P. Lovecraft 2. 'The Mysterious Card and the Card Unveiled' by Cleveland Moffett 3. 'Pigs Is Pigs' by Ellis Parker Butler 4. 'The Club of One-Eyed Men' by Arthur Somers Roche 5. 'Afterward' by Edith Wharton 6. 'The Furnished Room' by O. Henry 7. 'A Descent into the Maelström' by Edgar Allan Poe 8. 'Regret' by Kate Chopin 9. 'The Terrible Old Man' by H. P. Lovecraft 10. 'The Dumb Man' by Sherwood Anderson

"Wiek niewinnosci" to rzecz o dazeniu do realizacji pragnien, cenie poswiecenia i konflikcie uczuc i konwenansów. Znakomita proza, z maestria przeniesiona na ekran przez Martina Scorsese, z niezapomnianymi kreacjami glównych bohaterów, jakie stworzyli Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer i Winona Ryder.

Ethan Frome is an entrancing but sad story of a poverty-stricken Massachusetts farmer caught in a loveless marriage. An emerging love for his young cousin leads to one day of explosive emotions with tragic consequences.

It's midnight. Turn out the lights, cuddle with your true love, and shiver to fright-meisters Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and H. P. Lovecraft. Quicken your pulse with the elegant terror of Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Guy de Maupassant. Chortle at the black glee of H. H. Munro and Ambrose Bierce.

"I tell you there's nothing the public likes as much as convictions - they'll always follow a man who believes in his own ideas. And this book is just on the line of popular interest." Professor Linyard is a man of science. And when he writes a book to great acclaim in which he takes the side of religion, he fully expects the satire to be understood. But when it's taken at face value, he goes along with it to better provide for his family.

"Phil, my dear boy, really -- what's the matter? Why don't you answer? Have you seen the eyes?" An older gentleman invites a group of friends over for dinner and to discuss the supernatural. Afterwards, when only two guests remain, he tells them a story about The Eyes, about a man who is repeatedly haunted at night by a pair of grotesque eyes floating over the foot of his bed. 'The Eyes' is a short, sharp read that slowly enters your psyche and leaves you with a paragraph that may haunt you forever, because it's not about ghosts at all...

"You won't know till afterward. You won't know till long, long afterward." When Ned and Mary Boyne hear that their new house is haunted, they laugh it off and joke that every good house in the countryside must have a ghost for it to be worth purchasing. They move in and forget all about its supposed supernatural quirks. But when Mary notices a strange change in her husband's behaviour, she begins to suspect a not so friendly ghost is indeed at play.