Books

First edition, first�issue with � wearily� in perfect type on penultimate line of page 135 and with four pages of publisher� s advertisements at rear, of Wharton� s greatest tragic story, a � grim tale of a bud of romance ice-bound and turned into a frozen horror in the frigid setting of a New England winter landscape� (The New York Times). Octavo, original cloth, gilt titles to the spine and front panel, gilt topstain. In near fine condition contemporary name to the front free endpaper. A very nice example. � There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as major,� noted Gore Vidal, � and Edith Wharton is one.� Her Ethan Frome � shows a marked departure from the ironic contemplation of aristocratic mores� � the central problem is that of the barriers imposed by local conventions upon an individual whose happiness depends on rising above them� (Hart 813).

Ethan Frome is a novel published in 1911 by the American author Edith Wharton. It is set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel was adapted into a film in 1993. The story is a frame narrative concerning an unnamed narrator who tells the story based on an account from observations at Frome's house when he had to stay there during a winter storm. It is a classic of American literature, depicting the struggle between individual desire and social expectations.