A naive girl from a humble background meets an ambitious city boy, and a torrid romance ensues. Can their passion overcome the effects of heredity and environment? Edith Wharton, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ethan Frome, created a sensation with this 1917 work, which shattered the standards of conventional love stories by presenting a frank treatment of a woman's sexual awakening. A "superb short novel." - The New York Review of Books. AUTHOR: American novelist, playwright, and essayist Edith Wharton (1862–1937) chronicled upper-class New England life, drawing upon her privileged social position to create witty and psychologically insightful tales. Nominated three times for the Nobel Prize in Literature, she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Her novels include Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth.