Thursday, 17 July 2008

Appeal to well-read readers . . .

Can anyone kindly identify which Edith Wharton novel this passage comes from? House of Mirth perhaps?

She had a few handsome dresses left- survivals of her last phase of splendour. . . as she spread them out on the bed, the scenes in which they had been worn rose vividly before her. An association lurked in every fold: each fall of lace and gleam of embroidery was like a letter in the record of her past. She was startled to find how the atmosphere of her old life enveloped her. . . She put back the dresses one by one, laying away with each some gleam of light, some note of laughter, some stray waft from the rose shores of pleasure.

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7 comments:

  1. Anonymous17 July 2008 at 10:54

    Linda
    I think its The House of Mirth

    Sheila

    ReplyDelete
  2. Linda Grant17 July 2008 at 10:58

    It's certainly the most obvious novel. I'll have to go and flip though the last third until I come across it. I just need confirmation that that's the source.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Caro17 July 2008 at 11:40

    Google Books to the rescue: http://tinyurl.com/5f2pu5

    ReplyDelete
  4. Susan B17 July 2008 at 13:42

    I'm thinking it's House of Mirth as well.

    ReplyDelete
  5. materfamilias17 July 2008 at 14:38

    Chapter 13, apparently -- I used an English prof's checking-for-plagiarism trick and typed a sentence into Google. Very handy and should strike fear into my students ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Linda Grant17 July 2008 at 14:41

    Thanks to all of you, and that google thing is astonishing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous17 July 2008 at 15:23

    It is House of Mirth. I remember that from the beginning wrt Lily Bart.

    ReplyDelete

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