The Reef

by Louis Auchincloss (Introduction), Louis Auchincloss (Introduction), Edith Wharton (Author), Louis Auchincloss (Introduction)

• Used

  Paperback
  1996

  $3.41

  I put most of myself into that opus, Edith Wharton said of The Reef, possibly her most autobiographical novel. Published in 1912, it was, Bernard Berenson told Henry Adams, better than any previous work excepting Ethan Frome. A challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success. For its dramatic construction and acute insight into social mores and the multifaceted problem of sexuality, The Reef stands as one of Edith Wharton's most daring works of fiction.

• Used

  Paperback
  1998

  $3.27

  When The Reef appeared in 1912, reviewers found Edith Wharton's story of American expatriates in France sordid and even shocking; but Henry James considered it unequivocally her finest novel. Obliquely but intensely autobiographical, The Reef explores Wharton's ambivalent sense of both her newly adopted country and her unexpectedly awakened sexuality. The story focuses on George Darrow, an American diplomat in love with the recently widowed Anna Leath. On his way from London to visit her in France, Darrow finds himself accompanying Sophy Viner, a young American he has known in the past, on the way to Paris. The prologue to the novel is a novella in itself, a minutely rendered anatomy of social ambiguity, and one of Wharton's greatest achievements. The implications of those ten days in Paris inform the remainder of the novel, as Darrow's, Anna's and Sophy's lives become increasingly and intricately interdependent.

• New

  Paperback
  1998

  $16.64

  Anna Leath is a young widow, an American living in France. Behind her lies an arid marriage and a life deeply influenced by the rigid code of Old New York. Ahead lies new hope: a chance encounter in London with George Darrow, the first love of her youth, has left her awakened, disturbed. Anna returns to her beautiful country chateau to await her future: between two short distances can anything happen to disrupt such promise? But the charming Sophie Viner, governess to Anna's young daughter, holds the key to a secret which comes to reveal that Anna's future - and the very foundation of her life - is fragile where it appears most strong.