Finished: The House of Mirth (Wharton). Awww, another sad ending. :-( Darn, I really thought this one might actually end happily. It was obvious through the whole book that Lily Bart and Lawrence Seldon loved each other, but the evils of high society gossips and superior judgments were the downfall of poor Lily. Why couldn't Seldon have just not believed the worst in her when he saw her coming out of Trenor's house?? Through every obstacle in trying to keep herself afloat in the circles of the upper crust, and from spiraling into the despair of poverty, Lily's gut conscience always won out and she didn't follow through with plans to marry rich men she didn't love or blackmail the hideous Bertha Dorsett, etc. When she thought Gus Trenor had legitimately turned her meager $100 into $9000 with stock investments, she was shocked to learn that he'd really just given her the money and then expected favors in return. Sadly, everyone else believed she'd given the favors....including the level-headed, obviously in love, Seldon. When Bertha Dorsett paid Lily to come on a Mediterranean cruise with her and her husband, George, to be a distraction to George so Bertha could carry on an affair under his nose, the ending results were again disastrous...with Bertha dumping her young lover, and publicly ousting Lily from her employ with the suggestion that she'd been having an affair with George! Nothing could have been further from the truth, but money and gossip prevailed, and Lily was pretty much ruined. Just when she finally figured things out at the end, and kept her pride, and learned that maybe love was more important than being rich...and just when I think she was going to go and confess her love to Seldon....and just when Seldon was actually on his way over to Lily's to sweep her off her feet and tell her he loved her, she took an accidental overdose of sleeping drops to help her get through the fretful night and died. :-( Dang it! I want one of these old classics to have a happy ending!!!!!!! A good book, but sad, sad, sad.

On an interesting side note...apparently Edith Wharton's family is where the term "keeping up with the Joneses" came from! Edith's maiden name being Jones, and the family being ultra wealthy, they traveled back and forth from Europe to New York to Newport during Edith's childhood. I just thought that was interesting. :-)