Summer
by Edith Wharton 1862–1937
The book, and the century it came out of.
Charity Royall, raised out of a mountain settlement by the man who is now her guardian, spends one summer with a young architect from the city and understands, before he does, exactly how it will end. Wharton called it Hot Ethan, wrote it during the war in France, and never flinched: the mountain, the doctor’s house and the marriage that closes the book are the coldest ending she wrote. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Sisley, Gauguin and Chełmoński among them.
A girl came out of lawyer Royall’s house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep.
Summer, by Edith Wharton, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Literary Classics
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 176 pages
- Reading time
- about 4 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785486004759
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
1917, and she called it "the hot Ethan"
Written during the war, while Wharton was running relief work in France that would earn her the Legion of Honour. She turned back to a New England hill village and wrote about a girl’s sexual awakening with a frankness that startled her American reviewers.
Rural poverty in those villages was real and visible, and the novel refuses to make it picturesque: there is a settlement on the Mountain above the town whose people are outside the law and outside charity, and the heroine came from it.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
Summer, first published 1917, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Literary Classics shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785486004759, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of Summer?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Edith Wharton's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 176 pages, which is roughly about 4 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
