Possibly the darkest of Wharton's novels, this powerful, atmospheric example of American Gothic is also one of only two set outside the beau monde she examined so well. On arrival in a New England community, the narrator is struck by a man with "something bleak and unapproachable in his face". The drama which emerges is as heartbreaking as it is determinedly unsentimental, despite a brutually ironic twist at the end. Having married Zeena, who tended his ailing mother, Nathan Frome is trapped in poverty with a whining, prematurely-aged hypochondriac. When her young cousin comes to help in the house, Frome and the girl fall in love. Their escape collapses into a nightmare. Wharton's prose, with its menacing images of death and darkness, is superb. First published in 1911, this remains a hauntingly stark masterpiece. E.B.