Many of Wharton’s novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class pre-World War I society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics. In such works as <i>The House of Mirth</i> and <i>The Age of Innocence</i> she employed both humor and profound empathy to describe the lives of New York’s upper class and the vanishing of their world in the early years of the 20th century. In contrast, she used a harsher tone in her novel <i>Ethan Frome</i> to convey the atmosphere of lower-class rural Massachusetts.<br/>In addition to writing several respected novels, Wharton produced a wealth of short stories and is particularly well regarded for her ghost stories.<br/><b>Books</b> <details><summary></summary>Novels<br/>The Touchstone, 1900<br/>The Valley of Decision, 1902<br/>Sanctuary, 1903<br/>The House of Mirth, 1905<br/>Madame de Treymes, 1907<br/>The Fruit of the Tree, 1907<br/>Ethan Frome, 1911<br/>The Reef, 1912<br/>The Custom of the Country, 1913<br/>Summer, 1917<br/>The Marne, 1918<br/>The Age of Innocence, 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)<br/>The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922<br/>A Son at the Front, 1923<br/>Old New York, 1924<br/>The Mother's Recompense, 1925<br/>Twilight Sleep, 1927<br/>The Children, 1928<br/>Hudson River Bracketed, 1929<br/>The Gods Arrive, 1932<br/>The Buccaneers, 1938<br/>Fast and Loose, 1938 (first novel, written in 1876–1877)<br/>Poetry<br/>Verses, 1878<br/>Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse, 1909<br/>Twelve Poems, 1926<br/>Short story collections<br/>The Greater Inclination, 1899<br/>Souls Belated, 1899<br/>Crucial Instances, 1901<br/>The Descent of Man and Other Stories, 1903<br/>The Other Two, 1904<br/>The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories, 1908<br/>Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910<br/>Xingu and Other Stories, 1916<br/>Old New York, 1924<br/>Here and Beyond, 1926<br/>Certain People, 1930<br/>Human Nature, 1933<br/>The World Over, 1936<br/>Ghosts, 1937<br/>Non-fiction<br/>The Decoration of Houses, 1897<br/>Italian Villas and Their Gardens, 1904<br/>Italian Backgrounds, 1905<br/>A Motor-Flight Through France, 1908 (travel)<br/>France, from Dunkerque to Belfort, 1915 (war)<br/>French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919<br/>In Morocco, 1920 (travel)<br/>The Writing of Fiction, 1925 (essays on writing)<br/>A Backward Glance, 1934 (autobiography)<br/>As editor<br/>The Book of the Homeless, 1916</details>