Read4MaxClassics Browse library
Cover of Ethan Frome

Classic Fiction

Ethan Frome

A young man living a joyless life trapped in a loveless marriage gets a taste of true passion.

First published
1911
Length
35,827 words
Reading time
About 2 hr 30 min
Language
English (UK)

About the book

Ethan Frome is a young man whose nascent ambitions were thwarted by illness and privation. Now his daily toils wring only the most meager living from his fading farm, and his marriage is as frigid as the winter that has beset his home in Starkfield, MA. Yet despite the swirling snows, a flame of passion sparked by the recent arrival of his wife’s cousin, Mattie Silver, burns desperately within him. How far will he go to pursue a forbidden love and the prospect of true happiness? What will be the cost?

First published 1911.

The Read4Max reading text contains approximately 35,827 words arranged in 13 navigable sections.

About the author

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) is described by Wikidata as American writer and designer (1862–1937), with citizenship or national association recorded as United States.

Recorded occupations include writer, novelist, poet, translator, prose writer, and art historian. Languages recorded for Edith Wharton include English. Wikidata lists The Mount, The Age of Innocence, The Touchstone, The House of Mirth, The Reef, and The Custom of the Country among Edith Wharton's notable works. Open Library identifies Ethan Frome as a leading work in its author record. Open Library catalogs 1934 works under this author record. The Read4Max catalog currently includes Ethan Frome, Hudson River Bracketed, Summer, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth under Edith Wharton's authorship.

Reading options

  • A complete text with direct section navigation in the browser reader.
  • A downloadable EPUB for phones, tablets, desktop reading apps, and compatible ereaders.
  • Book and contributor metadata are checked against the source edition before indexing.

Themes and ideas

  • Domestic fiction
  • New England
  • Married people
  • Triangles (Interpersonal relations)
  • Accident victims
  • Rural poor

Table of contents

Open reader
Show all 13 sections
  1. Introduction
  2. Ethan Frome
  3. Prologue
  4. I
  5. II
  6. III
  7. IV
  8. V
  9. VI
  10. VII
  11. VIII
  12. IX
  13. Epilogue