Summer is a dark romance of sexual awakening and the journey from passion to love. Set in a remote New England hilltown just before the First World War, the novel is one of Edith Wharton’s greatest and most original - the only one centered on an explicit physical relationship. She called it “the hot Ethan Frome”.
The action unfolds from the viewpoint of Charity Royall - just turned twenty and overflowing with rootless, unformed desires. Born into poverty in a mountain lumber camp, Charity is taken in as a child by the local lawyer, Mr. Royall. After Mrs. Royall’s early death, Charity is left to grow up alone with Royall, who finds himself increasingly attracted to his home-grown beauty.
Then Lucius Harney, a city boy fresh from architecture school in Boston, walks into Charity’s refuge in the dusty village library. Lucius is attractive, intelligent, and well-connected. He falls for Charity on sight.
The story spirals in ever-tighter circles – Charity’s wary journey to adulthood, the bitter frustrations of her ambiguous relationship with Royall, and the lush, blossoming dream she shares with Lucius. The turning point comes among the crowds, fireworks and bunting of a feverish 4th of July celebration. Encompassing all is the cycling backdrop of New England seasons – spring into summer, fall into winter. Summer ends so that it will come again.
- from Chapter V, Summer by Edith Wharton, 1917
Edith Wharton on Summer as a film:
“Walter sent me the other day some cuttings describing the success of the Glimpses film, with Bebe Daniels as the heroine!! Perhaps this will “whoop up” some of the earlier ones. I’m sure Summer would film well.”
- Letter to Minnie Cadwalader Jones, Wharton’s sister-in-law
and American literary agent, April 16, 1923.
“I’ve been thinking for a week what a play could be made out of New Year’s Day! And Summer …“
- Letter to Minnie Jones, Dec. 16 1928.
“How I wish someone would dramatize its companion-piece, my novel called Summer, and that you would play the part of Charity Royal. But Mr. Sheldon says that a wave of prudery is sweeping over our blessed country, and that the play would shock the censor if not the audience.”
- Letter to Ruth Gordon, then playing Mattie Silver in the
Broadway production of Ethan Frome, March 12th, 1936