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The House of Mirth was printed in 1905 by Edith Wharton, a well-known author in the famous and wealthy New York family. Wharton, in most of her novels, investigates and exposes the opulent society where she dwelt. She understood the intricacies of high society such as the back of her hands, and wealthy New York society is indeed the popular topic of House of Mirth.

The novel follows Lily Bart, a beautiful young lady on the search for a wealthy husband, as she navigates the social landscape and suffers tragically in its pre-pregnancy palms.

In the time of its publication, House of Mirth was critically and commercially a fantastic success. But, it was condemned by some as overly-critical of society's elite -- and by "a few" we imply, obviously, "society's elite" themselves. Ouch.

The novel firmly established Edith Wharton as a significant author, also paved the way for later novels, such as The Age of Innocence, where she received the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. House of Mirth was also seminal as a historical novel in a genre of literature known as "The Novel of Manners." These works explore a particular social system in a particular time, normally elite society sometime around the last half of the 19th century. Wharton was among authors such as Jane Austen and Evelyn Waugh in pioneering this particular genre.

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