In spite of the fact that The House of Mirth was published in 1905, the truths that Wharton illustrates with Lily’s story feel strangely contemporary. What a working woman can take away from this story is a gladness that she can marry or not; that she can keep her friends or not; that she can join the social whirl or thumb her nose at it because she possesses an independence that Lily Bart was denied.

A winner of the 1923 Pulitzer Prize, One of Ours tells the story of Claude Wheeler, a young Nebraska man who is struggling to find meaning in his life. The novel is divided thematically into two parts. The first part is set in the Nebraska wheat fields where Claude works on his father’s farm. The second part takes place in France where Claude serves in the American army during WWI.

You may have noticed a little slowdown in site activity at Girlebooks. We’ve been doing some website housekeeping. Notably, our entire catalog is now available through Amazon’s Kindle ebook store. You can take links from our ebook catalog to the appropriate page on Amazon’s website to send the ebook to your Kindle.