Ethan Frome

About the Author<br/><br/>Elizabeth Strout is the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction for her novel Amy and Isabelle. She lives in New York City and teaches literature and writing at Manhattan Community College.<br/><br/>Product Description<br/><br/>Webster's paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running English-to-Danish thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton was edited for three audiences. The first includes Danish-speaking students enrolled in an English Language Program (ELP), an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) program, an English as a Second Language Program (ESL), or in a TOEFL� or TOEIC� preparation program. The second audience includes English-speaking students enrolled in bilingual education programs or Danish speakers enrolled in English-speaking schools. The third audience consists of students who are actively building their vocabularies in Danish in order to take foreign service, translation certification, Advanced Placement� (AP�) or similar examinations. By using the Webster's Danish Thesaurus Edition when assigned for an English course, the reader can enrich their vocabulary in anticipation of an examination in Danish or English.<br>TOEFL�, TOEIC�, AP� and Advanced Placement� are trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which has neither reviewed nor endorsed this book. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>Review<br/><br/>Wharton's prose, with its menacing images of death and darkness, is superb. First published in 1911, it remains a hauntingly stark masterpiece * IRISH TIMES * Edith Wharton is unique in the intimacy and sureness, not to mention the virile and satiric tone, with which she investigates this narrow and declining society * TLS *<br/><br/>From AudioFile<br/><br/>Kids will respond to the audio version of Ethan Frome, in the same way they have responded to the book. First, kids enjoy short fiction, and Marilyn Langbehn's fully voiced reading is short. Also kids like strong feelings, and what is stronger than Ethan's restrained fury at Zeena? Finally, kids are intrigued with irony and view with awe Ethan's twisted fate. Langbehn voices perfectly the carping, invidious Zeena. But in using her voice far below its natural range for Ethan, she weakens his characterization and the ironic effect. This, coupled with careless production editing, prevents full immersion in the text. This is a good audiobook but not a great one. P.E.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine<br/><br/>Book Description<br/><br/>Cambridge Literature is a series of literary texts edited for study by students 14-18 years old in English-speaking classrooms.<br/><br/>From the Inside Flap<br/><br/>This edition presents Wharton's two most controversial stories, which she considered inseperable, in one volume for the first time. Set in frigid New England, both deal with sexual awakening and appetite and their devastating consequences. This text includes newly commissioned notes.<br/><br/>From the Back Cover<br/><br/>Set against the bleak winter landscape of New England, Ethan Frome tells the story of a poor farmer, lonely and downtrodden, his wife Zeena, and her cousin, the enchanting Mattie Silver. In the playing out of this short novel's powerful and engrossing drama, Edith Wharton constructed her least characteristic and most celebrated book. In its unyielding and shocking pessimism, its bleak demonstration of tragic waste, it is a masterpiece of psychological and emotional realism. In her introduction the distinguished critic Elaine Showalter discusses the background to the novel's composition and the reasons for its enduring success.<br/><br/>Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.<br/><br/>Chapter I<br/><br/>The village lay under two feet of snow, with drifts at the windy corners. In a sky of iron the points of the Dipper hung like icicles and Orion flashed his cold fires. The moon had set, but the night was so transparent that the white house-fronts between the elms looked gray against the snow, clumps o