Easton Press, Edith Wharton "Ethan Frome" Leather Bound Collector's Edition

Easton Press, Norwalk CT. 1967 Edith Wharton "Ethan Frome" Limited Edition. The collector's library of Famous Editions.

Edith Wharton (1862-1937), American author, wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Age of Innocence (1920);
Set in 1870's New York City, Wharton examines upper-class values and morals in all their conventionality and tradition, rigidity and hypocrisy, at times with her subtle irony and wit. As Newland Archer is living the life of the just and doing all the right things to establish his respectability in society, his na'vet comes to the fore when his affections are torn between two women. Edith Wharton herself broke out of the conventional mores of her time to become the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

She is the source of many such witticisms and concise observations on human nature as, the only way not to think about money is to have a great deal of it. (House of Mirth, Bk. 1, Ch. 5); Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet alone. ; and When people ask for time, it's always for time to say no. Yes has one more letter in it, but it doesn't take half as long to say. (The Children pub. 1928).
Wharton had a great love of architecture, gardens and design and wrote numerous articles and essays on the subjects including Italian Villas and Their Gardens (1904). As the author of numerous best-selling award-winning works including novels, short stories, and travel essays she has inspired many other authors. Some of her works have been adapted to the stage and film and many are still in print today.

I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story. If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade: and you must have asked who he was.
It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp.

Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the "natives" were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.