Summer

Summer by Edith Wharton (1917) is a novel of passion and social constraints, set in the rural New England town of North Dormer. The story follows Charity Royall, a young woman who, despite having been raised in a small, isolated town, finds herself caught between desire and convention. Raised by her adoptive mother, Miss Royall, Charity is an orphan whose uncertain past and low-class origins haunt her sense of self. While Miss Royall’s wealth offers her a modicum of security, Charity’s life is otherwise limited—confined to the mundane tasks of a small town, feeling disconnected from the more cosmopolitan world outside. Lucius Harney, a summer visitor and a sophisticated intellectual from the city, enters Charity’s life, sparking her first true experience of romantic and sexual desire.