The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ethan Frome explores the longings and regrets of two spinster sisters in Gilded Age New York City.
In a basement shop on a side street near Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Square, sisters Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner sell artificial flowers and various hand-sewn articles for women. They once held lofty aspirations for their business but have learned to be content in their quiet lives making a modest income selling to a select clientele of locals from the neighborhood. Things soon change after Ann Eliza buys Evelina a birthday present, and a bachelor clockmaker enters their world . . .
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) published more than forty books during her lifetime, including the classic Gilded Age society novels Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and The Age of Innocence, for which she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.