One of Edith Wharton’s most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a blistering indictment of materialism, power, and misplaced values. Its heroine, Undine Spragg, is one of the most ruthless characters in all of literature, as selfishly unscrupulous as she is fiercely beautiful. When her family acquires a small fortune, they leave America’s heartland and head east. As Undine climbs the social ladder through a series of marriages and affairs, she shows little concern for wh...

The five little Peppers are an adorable family of children growing up in a small town and cared for by their widowed mother. She is so poor that the pittance she earns as the town seamstress fails to support or even sustain the family.The children are happy despite privation, and the smallest pleasures cause delight and merriment in the little house. Everything happens to this brood while mother is away sewing, and no matter how dangerous the situation, they come out of it safe and...

First published in 1899, this revolutionary novel so disturbed critics and the public that it was banished for decades afterward. Now widely read and admired, The Awakening has been hailed as an early vision of woman's emancipation. Rooted in the romantic tradition of Melville and Dickinson, it is the story of twenty-eight-year-old Edna Pontellier, a surprisingly modern woman trapped in a dehumanizing marriage and in search of self-discovery. Turning away from convention and socie...

Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the most original painters America has ever produced. Her vivid visual vocabulary—sensuous flowers, bleached bones against red sky and earth—has had a profound and lasting influence on American art in this century.Renowned for her fierce independence, iron determination, and unique artistic vision, O'Keeffe had a personal mystique as intriguing and enduring as her bold, brilliant canvasses. Here is a full account of her exceptional life—from her girlhood...

She was known for her outrageous one-liners, her ruthless theater criticism, her clever verses and bittersweet stories. But there was another side of Dorothy Parker: a private life set on a course of destruction through two divorces, a string of painful affairs, a lifelong problem with alcohol, and several suicide attempts.In this lively, absorbing biography, Marion Meade illuminates both sides of the fascinating Parker: her dark days, as well as her days in the sun at the Algonqui...

She was the tempestuous, strong-willed woman who ignited the movie screen with her legendary performances in Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, and All About Eve. Off-camera, Bette Davis fought endless contractual battles with studios and survived four disastrous marriages, earning a larger-than-life reputation as an actress to be reckoned with. In this extraordinary biography, fans and film historians will discover a different, darker side of Bette Davis: a woman beset ...

Jesse, a Hebrew slave, and Jennat, a half-Egyptian, half-Syrian servant girl, both serve the Egyptians, but they live in vastly different worlds. Though Jennat serves a wealthy mistress, Memnet, she is content to share in the glitter of Egyptian life and idol worship. But Jesse’s life is filled with cruelty inflicted upon him by Egyptian task-masters. Jesse’s father believes only in survival and will stop at nothing to gain favors from the rich and powerful. His mother, however, believes t...

Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, was the most powerful woman of the ancient Mediterranean and the only person standing between Rome and its dominion over the world. She was wife to Julius Caesar and bore his only son. After his death, she took his greatest general, Mark Antony, as her lover and consort—and as her partner in a vast political enterprise. Together, they strove to unite Egypt and Rome under one throne.Throne of Isis shows us an extraordinary woman wielding the power...

This spare, mesmerizing novel is Edith Wharton’s money-can’t-buy-happiness tale. Young Stephen Glennard is poor, but he has an unanticipated gambling chip: a collection of love letters from a scorned but now famous lover, the distinguished novelist Margaret Aubyn. To raise money for his forthcoming wedding to another woman, Stephen stoops to selling the letters. His decision brings him wealth and admission to society, but a mystery contained in the missives comes back to haunt him, and it ...

Wharton's most erotic and lyrical novel, Summer explores a daring theme for 1917: a woman's awakening to her sexuality.Eighteen-year-old Charity Royall lives in the small town of North Dormer, ignorant of desire until the arrival of architect Lucius Harney. Independent yet kept from love until now by society's expectations, Charity finds herself wrapped up in a love affair with Harney.Like the succulent summer landscape in the Berkshires around the...

For vibrant, lovely Jean Suttman, the fellowship to study in Rome was the culmination of her dreams, until she undertook an innocent expedition to the ancient Temple of Mithra. From the moment she stepped into the pagan darkness and discovered the corpse of Albert, one of her fellow students, she was afraid.Not even the comforting presence of the perceptive and practical Jacqueline Kirby could erase the fear that was nourished by one small accident after another, “accidents” that c...

A good salary and an all-expenses-paid summer spent a sprawling Arizona ranch is too good a deal for fledgling anthropologist D. J. Abbott to turn down—especially when it's six hundred miles from home. What does it matter that her rich new employer and benefactor, Hank Hunnicutt, is a certified oddball who is presently funding all manner of off-beat projects, from alien conspiracy studies to a hunt for dragon bones? There's even talk of treasure buried in the nearby mountains, but D. J. is...