https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/11/the-house-of-mirth-jennifer-egan-on-edith-whartons-masterpiece

Set in the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, with a widening income gap comparable to our own, The House of Mirth is a relevant and electrifying classic for our times

The House of Mirth was the first literary classic that I picked up entirely on my own, without prodding from a teacher or a parent, and adored. I read it as a teenager, during a stifling summer visit to my grandparents, when my literary tastes were unsophisticated (Archie comics were high on my list). I recall the experience as my coming of age as a reader – when I learned, years before discovering that I wanted to write, what transformative power a work of fiction can have.

Because my attachment to the book is so personal, I tend to reread it with slight trepidation that the magic may have fled. After all, the world and I have both changed quite a bit since I was a teenager. But each time, I find the novel’s tragic power intact, even as the nature of the tragedy seems to shift – from the perils of living by one’s looks (teenage reading) to the cruelty of the world towards women (early adult reading) to the struggle for personal freedom in a money-obsessed culture (adult reading) to my most recent (middle-aged, I’ll reluctantly call it) appreciation of the novel as an artefact of the Gilded Age that lays bare that era’s pathologies. All of which moves me to assert that Edith Wharton’s second novel is a masterpiece that remains electrifying and relevant in our 21st century.