The Reef: Introduction by Julian Barnes-Fast Shipping

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Edith Wharton was at the height of her enormous literarypowers when she published The Reef in 1912, and everything about this novel suggestsa mastery so complete that it can achieve nothing higher. The plot, which tells ofthe drastic effects of a casual sexual betrayal on the lives of four Americans inFrance, is expertly turned, suspenseful, continually compelling. An assured, unhurrieddramatic instinct governs the great moments of confrontation and revelation. Thecentral characters, two of whom are innocents and two of whom are burdened by experienceand tinged with desperation, are perfectly delineated: their relationships to oneanother are constructed with a classical feeling for harmony, proportion, and the entire novel is imbued with a clear-eyed wisdom about both the possibilitiesand the limitations of human love. Wharton would go on to write splendid books aftercompleting The Reef, but nowhere does she display a finer command of her art thanshe does here.