A girl came out of lawyer Royall's house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep. It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of street when it passes through North Dormer. The place lies ...
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A girl came out of lawyer Royall's house, at the end of the one street of North Dormer, and stood on the doorstep. It was the beginning of a June afternoon. The springlike transparent sky shed a rain of silver sunshine on the roofs of the village, and on the pastures and larchwoods surrounding it. A little wind moved among the round white clouds on the shoulders of the hills, driving their shadows across the fields and down the grassy road that takes the name of street when it passes through North Dormer. The place lies high and in the open, and lacks the lavish shade of the more protected New England villages. The clump of weeping-willows about the duck pond, and the Norway spruces in front of the Hatchard gate, cast almost the only roadside shadow between lawyer Royall's house and the point where, at the other end of the village, the road rises above the church and skirts the black hemlock wall enclosing the cemetery. The little June wind, frisking down the street, shook the doleful fringes of the Hatchard spruces, caught the straw hat of a young man just passing under them, and spun it clean across the road into the duck-pond. As he ran to fish it out the girl on lawyer Royall's doorstep noticed that he was a stranger, that he wore city clothes, and that he was laughing with all his teeth, as the young and careless laugh at such mishaps. Her heart contracted a little, and the shrinking that sometimes came over her when she saw people with holiday faces made her draw back into the house and pretend to look for the key that she knew she had already put into her pocket. A narrow greenish mirror with a gilt eagle over it hung on the passage wall, and she looked critically at her reflection, wished for the thousandth time that she had blue eyes like Annabel Balch, the girl who sometimes came from Springfield to spend a week with old Miss Hatchard, straightened the sunburnt hat over her small swarthy face, and turned out again into the sunshine. "How I hate everything!" she murmured. The young man had passed through the Hatchard gate, and she had the street to herself. North Dormer is at all times an empty place, and at three o'clock on a June afternoon its few able-bodied men are off in the fields or woods, and the women indoors, engaged in languid household drudgery. - Taken from "Summer" written by Edith Wharton
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Add this copy of Summer to cart. $25.63, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Santa Clarita, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Independently published.
Add this copy of Summer to cart. $48.24, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Santa Clarita, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Independently published.
Add this copy of Summer to cart. $53.28, new condition, Sold by Just one more Chapter rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Miramar, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2020 by Independently published.
I read this book for my bookclub and we had a great discussion about it. It really provoked a lot of different opinions about women's roles in society, both past and present. My one criticism is that the foreword of the volume I had laid out the entire plot, including the ending!! I was very disappointed when I realized it had spoiled the ending...but it did give me an interesting perspective as I read the book!
pamela1717
Apr 12, 2009
No more Wharton for me!
So every now and then I get this bug that I should improve myself, bag the comtemporary lit, and try some classics. And usually it goes like this: pick up the book, try to read it 2-3 times, and then abandon it to the giveaway/trade pile. Well, it's happened again. As I said before, I tried to read this three times and couldn't get past Chapter 2. I will say however, the writing is not flowery or verbose (which I appreciate) but it just wasn't for me. But if you're a classics person, there is no reason why you shouldn't give this one a try.
