Fiction · 1912
The Reef
The Reef follows Anna Leath, a reserved American widow living in France, whose engagement to the diplomat George Darrow is unsettled when she discovers his brief, already-over affair with a young woman — who turns out to be Sophy Viner, the governess now engaged to Anna's own stepson. What could be a simple scandal becomes, in Edith Wharton's hands, a slow, exact study of what each of the four people involved is willing to know about themselves and forgive, or not forgive, in the others.
Edith Wharton published the novel in 1912, between Ethan Frome (1911) and The Custom of the Country (1913); she and Henry James, whose influence is often noted in this book particularly, were close friends and frequent correspondents by the time it appeared.
Bibliomancer publishes the 1912 text exactly as Edith Wharton wrote it.
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About this edition
The text is free of copyright. This edition was prepared from an authoritative digitisation, processed by Bibliomancer under its own review protocol; every automated correction is recorded in its transformation log. Rights assessed for CA, EU, GB, US.
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About the author
1862–1937 · Modern
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was born Edith Newbold Jones into old New York society, published her first book, on interior decoration, in 1897, and her first novel in 1902. The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), The Custom of the Country (1913) and The Age of Innocence (1920), which won the Pulitzer Prize, are the best known of more than forty books. She lived in France from 1907 and was decorated for her relief work in the First World War.
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