Lily Bart is a beautiful, intelligent young woman in the New York society of the early 1900s. Without money of her own, she needs a wealthy marriage to secure her place, yet she keeps hesitating, held back by taste, conscience and a wish for something more than comfort. As gossip, debts and the schemes of friends close in, her position grows more precarious. Wharton's first major success is a sharp, compassionate study of how a society judges women and money, and it remains one of the great American novels of social life.
Quotes
She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.
BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD—even the hidden god