Published by The Folio Society, London, 1990. A beautiful edition of this novel, with illustrations by Eric Holzman and an introduction by Bel Mooney. There is a small chip on the slipcase crease to the back, but does not impact on the book or its condition. 
 
The House of Mirth was originally written in 1905 and tells the story of Lily Bart, a well-born but impoverished woman belonging to New York City's high society around the end of the 19th century. Wharton creates a portrait of a stunning beauty who, though raised and educated to marry well both socially and economically, is reaching her 29th year, an age when her youthful blush is drawing to a close and her marital prospects are becoming ever more limited.
 
The novel traces Lily's slow two-year social descent from privilege to a tragically lonely existence on the margins of society. In the words of one scholar, Wharton uses Lily as an attack on "an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class."