Ethan Frome [Limited Edition] by WHARTON, Edith (1862-1937) - 1922

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1922. Hardcover. Fine. One of 2000 copies, in slipcase, designed by Bruce Rogers. Publisher's quarter-bound brown cloth over deep tan paper-covered boards, printed paper label to spine, all edges untrimmed, illustrated frontispiece, slip case of brown paper-covered boards with printed paper label. (Garrison calls for a dust jacket, but our copy has none.) Previous owner's name ("Susan W. Clark / 1922") on front fly leaf and small bookseller's label on inner bottom corner. An exceptional, virtually pristine copy, square, tight and probably unread, pages clean and crisp, slip case with only minor wear to corners and edges. Superb. Davis, p. 15. Garrison A 19.2. Johnson, High Spots, pp 76-77. Auchincloss, The Edith Wharton Reader, p. 21. By 1910, Teddy Wharton's mental health was fast deteriorating, and his embezzlement of money from Edith's trust fund signaled the end of the Wharton's' marriage, as well as Edith's American life. She leased an apartment on the Left Bank, in Paris, where she would remain until 1920. The Mount, her beloved Berkshires retreat, was sold in 1911, and "henceforth her life would be wholly a European one. . . It is somehow fitting that [Edith Frome], her frosty New England tragedy of a damaged New England farmer devastatingly crippled physically and emotionally by a disastrous love-affair, coincided with Wharton's own sundering of bonds to that same landscape and to a now-hopeless marriage which formally ended in 1913." (Literary Encyclopedia) "[I]t is surely among her best. When I think of it [Ethan Frome], I visualize a small painting, perfectly executed to the last detail." (Auchincloss) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed.