Summer (Summarized Edition)

Summer (1917) follows Charity Royall in the New England hill country as a young woman's desire collides with the hard strata of class and law. Wharton's taut, sensuous prose couples local-color detail with a naturalist regard for social constraint, turning heat into both atmosphere and agent. Drawn to Lucius Harney, an architect cataloging vernacular houses, Charity's pastoral romance darkens into...