Book Review: Summer, by Edith Wharton (1917)

Penguin Classics cover of Summer, by Edith Wharton, first published in 1917.

Author Edith Wharton, 1862-1937.

Edith Wharton’s novel Summer, published in 1917, hasn’t achieved the same level of fame as her best-known works, The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, but it’s an excellent book about a young woman’s first love. Summer is the first book of Wharton’s I’ve read. I enjoyed Wharton’s beautifully descriptive language that was vividly on display throughout Summer. 

The physical landscape is almost a major character in Summer, as Wharton includes many descriptions of the New England countryside where the novel is set. The main character is eighteen-year-old Charity Royall, who lives in the tiny village of North Dormer. The name of the village may be a pun on dormer windows, as Charity’s love interest, Lucius Harney, is an architect. Charity was born “on the Mountain,” in a small enclave of outcasts from society, and was brought “down the Mountain” when she was a young girl by lawyer Royall and his wife. (I didn’t forget to capitalize his first name, it’s never mentioned in the book, and he’s often called simply “lawyer Royall,” as he is in the legal profession.) By the time the novel opens, Mr. Royall’s wife is long dead, and he makes his relationship with Charity super awkward by proposing to her. Charity turns him down, and then asserts her independence by getting a job at the village library so she can earn some money of her own, with the eventual idea of leaving North Dormer. 

North Dormer’s most notable resident was Honorius Hatchard, an early 19^th century writer:

“Such had been the sole link between North Dormer and literature, a link piously commemorated by the erection of the monument where Charity Royall, every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, sat at her desk under a freckled steel engraving of the deceased author, and wondered if he felt any deader in his grave than she did in his library.” (p.5) 

But Charity’s job and life get a lot more interesting when Lucius Harney comes to town. Harney is an architect who is researching old houses in the area. He and Charity instantly connect when he steps into the library to do some research. However, Charity’s pride is offended when she learns that Lucius has told his cousin, the elderly and wealthy Miss Hatchard, that the books in the library were in bad shape. Charity’s relationship with Lucius is thus a tempestuous one from the very beginning. 

Summer is a very sensual novel, despite the fact that Charity and Lucius don’t share their first kiss until halfway through the book. There are beautiful passages throughout the book, such as this one: 

 “The dew hung on everything, not as a lingering moisture, but in separate beads that glittered like diamonds on the ferns and grasses.” (p.50)

Wharton also had a sharp eye for characters, and even minor characters get vivid descriptions: “She sat before her reflection, bending the brim this way and that, while Ally Hawes’s pale face looked over her shoulder like the ghost of wasted opportunities.” (p.81)

One of my favorite sentences in the book was this one: “Charity’s heart contracted. The first fall of night after a day of radiance often gave her a sense of hidden menace: it was like looking out over the world as it would be when love had gone from it.” (p.121) That’s a sentence that just sticks with you long after you finish reading it.

Summer is often compared to Wharton’s other New England novel, Ethan Frome. There’s a small connection between the two books: at the very beginning of Summer it’s mentioned that Charity might attend a boarding school in Starkfield—the town that Ethan Frome is set in. 

Summer is a superbly written novel, with complex characters and themes. Charity Royall is a fascinating protagonist, and the dilemmas she faces throughout the book illustrate how difficult it was in 1917 for a woman in her position to have any independence.