Audiobook · read by volunteers
Summer
Edith Wharton (1862–1937)
Read by Robin Cotter · 18 chapters · 5 h 39
About the book
Charity Royall has grown up in a small New England village, a place she finds narrow and dull, and she longs for something more. When a young visitor arrives, her world opens, and she discovers feelings she did not know she had. Edith Wharton's novel of 1917 follows this awakening with a candid, unsentimental eye, and also shows the pressure of a small town on a young woman's choices. It is one of only two novels she set in New England, and it shares some themes with her better known Ethan Frome. Eighteen chapters and nearly six hours, read by LibriVox volunteers, make a compelling and quietly daring story. Short, intense and beautifully written, it is a fine choice for readers who enjoy realistic fiction with emotional depth, and it is an excellent way to discover a lesser-known side of Wharton's art.
Introduction
Edith Wharton (1862 to 1937) was an American novelist who came from a wealthy New York family and who became one of the sharpest observers of the society in which she grew up. Her novels The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence are now classics, and in 1921 she became the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Summer, published in 1917, is one of her less typical books, since it takes place in a rural community rather than in the drawing rooms of the city.
The novel is concerned with the sexual awakening of its heroine, Charity Royall. This was a bold subject for a book of its time, and Wharton treats it with great frankness and no moralizing. She also sets the story firmly in its place, with its limited opportunities, its habits of silence and its way of keeping a young woman in her place.
Summer was only moderately well received when it first appeared, and it has often been compared with Ethan Frome. In recent decades it has attracted new attention, and many readers now consider it among her finest works. It is shorter and more compact than her society novels, and it has a lyrical quality in its descriptions of the countryside and the seasons.
The recording has eighteen chapters, with a running time of nearly six hours, and is read by volunteers of LibriVox. A good choice for anyone who enjoys psychological realism. The recording lets you hear the rhythm of her prose, and the changes of mood from lyrical to tense. Anyone who knows The Age of Innocence will see how varied her talents were.
Public domain
Edith Wharton died in 1937: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text