Edith Wharton is the quintessential Manhattan novelist. A society girl from the late 1800s herself, Wharton writes insightfully and brilliantly about New York high society in The House of Mirth. Her protagonist, Lily Bart, is a captivating, delicate, struggling socialite of few economic means who flits around Manhattan trying to scrape by enough to survive. You will be entranced by Lily, who seems too fragile and innocent for the cut-throat, harsh world she lives in.