Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
The House of Mirth
- Narrated by: Eleanor Bron
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
99p for the first 3 months
Buy Now for £16.00
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
Exclusively from Audible
Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means.
Now nearing 30 years of age and having rejected several proposals, forever in the hope of finding someone better, her future prospects are threatened.
A damning commentary of 20th-century social order, Edith Wharton's tale established her as one of the greatest British novelists of the 1900s. Taking us on a journey through lavish drawing rooms in grand country houses to cold and menacing boarding houses, Wharton addresses the consequences awaiting those who openly dared to challenge the status quo.
First published in serial form, The House of Mirth contributed significantly to Edith Wharton's already substantial riches. Accustomed to living a life of privilege, Wharton was able to foster her creative talents from a young age.
Working as a published author from the age of 18, Wharton's story is as intriguing and daring as her heroine's. Wedding and then divorcing Edward Wharton, her experience of marriage and consequent heartbreak is usually chronicled in her works.
Never the victim however, Wharton went on to receive multiple awards for her writing, as well as the bravery that she demonstrated during the First World War when she organised hostels for refugees, fund-raised for those in need and reported from battlefield frontlines.
Usually seen in the company of other great authors including Jack London, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jean Cocteau, Wharton became a literary master whose skill and wit is perfectly captured in this enthralling audiobook.
Narrator Biography
Celebrated author and stage, film and television actress, Eleanor Bron, lends her iconic voice to the narration of The House of Mirth.
Best known for her roles in films such as A Little Princess, Bedazzled, Women in Love, Black Beauty and Alfie, Eleanor's career is as varied as it has been successful.
Also not a stranger to the theatre, Bron thrived in classical and modern productions of plays including The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, The Merchant of Venice, Private Lives, All About My Mother and Hedda Gabler.
A celebrated writer, Eleanor has published various titles, including Life and Other Punctures, Double Take and The Pillow Book of Eleanor Bron.
Further audiobook contributions include A Little Princess by Frances Burnett, The Aeneid by Virgil, The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.
More from the same
What listeners say about The House of Mirth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
- Amazon Customer
- 03-09-22
Excellent reading
My second read of this well observed and highly insightful story of the interwoven lives of those in society at that time.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cynthia
- 05-04-15
Absolute Perfection
Exceeded my expectations. Classic Wharton with perfect narration by Eleanor Bron. I was unable to stop listening, which for me is rare.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 16-09-22
To fall in the gilded age
Superbly read by Eleanor Bron, in this novel of the gilded age and New York high society we meet a society beauty who seems to have all she needs. But seeming is just seeming because she does not yet have a husband.
Through a combination of bad luck, her own high minded distaste for dishonest compromise and her ambivalent attachment to a man who might be worthy of her, but unable to supply the material luxury she feels should be her due.
Then her fall begins because, when the veneer is stripped back, the carefree world she coverts is really just a flourish of money and power. Those that have neither must become playthings and adornments. And, of course, victims.
A fine companion piece to the author’s better known The Age of Innocence, this is almost a great novel. It is diminished by the bathos of its final chapters as melodrama threatens. All the same there is much of the highest merit to compensate for any failings.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 14-03-23
Fascinating view of women’s lives in 1900
Thank goodness for the suffragettes and feminism. Quite a depressing book but I loved the descriptions of Paris fashions, milliners. All those horrible or weak male characters. No female emancipation and the women lucky enough to have money were largely predatory.
Fascinating! Eleanor Bron - superb.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Pinkers
- 22-02-24
A masterpiece
Edith Wharton never lets us down. This early work is her best, setting the formula/agenda of what is to come.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Scriptwriter
- 18-04-22
A masterpiece
Edith Wharton’s prose is beyond compare. This is an exquisite,heartbreaking story and it is beautifully read by Eleanor Bron.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ka
- 15-03-24
Lovely reading of Edith Wharton's tale of a society girl's downfall
Eleanor Bron who played Lily's aunt Mrs Peniston in the 2000 adaptation gives a sensitive and sophisticated performance that perfectly suits Edith Wharton's elegant but uncompromising depiction of early 20th century upper class New York.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- CBHVB71
- 23-10-19
Something bothered me all along
The reader had a wonderful voice and wonderful accent but something truly bothered me throughout the book. To hear the sound of the reader's saliva as she read. Could she have had some water before reading? Or perhaps not put her mouth so close to the recording device? It just took away from the pleasure of listening to such a charming audio book. Still, I heard it to the end and was happy to have done so despite the annoyance.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- LadyLyndsay
- 10-03-21
ABSORBING LISTENING
I would be very much surprised if Thomas Hardy and George Eliot were not both part of Edith Wharton's deeply loved reading heritage. She proves her self capable of laying out before us Hardy's relentless twists of fatally contrary events and misapprehensions combined with Eliot's searching spotlight on the inner landscapes of her protagonists' minds and souls. If you have loved the novels of those two great Victorians, you will love this insight into the gilded social cage which confined and stifled the men and women of New York high society in the emerging 20th century.
I only knocked off one star due to the narrator's pace which hurried on without any of those gaps between significant events which are needed to allow the listener to digest what has just occurred.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- ISilver
- 07-02-22
WooHoo for Wharton.
Not much expression from the narrator. But, the book is good enough to make it worthwhile getting past that. You are richly rewarded for your small effort, and it didn't even cost me a credit. Next stop, Age of Innocence.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!