Ethan Frome
- Downloads
- Under 100
- First published
- 1911
- Pages
- 100
Listen to Ethan Frome Audiobook Free
-
Chapter 00
25:38 -
Chapter 01
15:52 -
Chapter 02
16:42 -
Chapter 03
11:20 -
Chapter 04
22:30 -
Chapter 05
10:56 -
Chapter 06
9:24 -
Chapter 07
23:54 -
Chapter 08
16:24 -
Chapter 09
39:40
Ethan Frome (1911) is a public domain work.
The audio edition streams in the page. There is no audio file to download.
About this book
In a bleak, snowbound New England village, the poor farmer Ethan Frome is trapped in a loveless marriage to his sickly, querulous wife when he falls in love with her gentle young cousin Mattie (a passion that drives toward a shattering, tragic act. Wharton's spare, powerful novella is a masterpiece of restrained tragedy, its wintry landscape mirroring lives frozen by poverty, duty, and thwarted desire. Unforgettable and devastating, Ethan Frome strips romance to its cruelest bones. Tautly written and emotionally overwhelming, it is one of the great American short novels) a stark, haunting story of longing crushed beneath circumstance and the long, silent suffering that follows.
From the opening pages
I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.
If you know Starkfield, Massachusetts, you know the post-office. If you know the post-office you must have seen Ethan Frome drive up to it, drop the reins on his hollow-backed bay and drag himself across the brick pavement to the white colonnade; and you must have asked who he was.
It was there that, several years ago, I saw him for the first time; and the sight pulled me up sharp. Even then he was the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man. It was not so much his great height that marked him, for the “natives” were easily singled out by their lank longitude from the stockier foreign breed: it was the careless powerful look he had, in spite of a lameness checking each step like the jerk of a chain. There was something bleak and unapproachable in his face, and he was so stiffened and grizzled that I took him for an old man and was surprised to hear that he was not more than fifty-two. I had this from Harmon Gow, who had driven the stage from Bettsbridge to Starkfield in pre-trolley days and knew the chronicle of all the families on his line.
“He’s looked that way ever since he had his smash-up; and that’s twenty-four years ago come next February,” Harmon threw out between reminiscent pauses.
The “smash-up” it was—I gathered from the same informant—which, besides drawing the red gash across Ethan Frome’s forehead, had so shortened and warped his right side that it cost him a visible effort to take the few steps from his buggy to the post-office window. He used to drive in from his farm every day at about noon, and as that was my own hour for fetching my mail I often passed him in the porch or stood beside him while we waited on the motions of the distributing hand behind the grating. I noticed that, though he came so punctually, he seldom received anything but a copy of the Bettsbridge Eagle, which he put without a glance into his sagging pocket. At intervals, however, the post-master would hand him an envelope addressed to Mrs. Zenobia—or Mrs. Zeena—Frome, and usually bearing conspicuously in the upper left-hand corner the address of some manufacturer of patent medicine and the name of his specific. These documents my neighbour would also pocket without a glance, as if too much used to them to wonder at their number and variety, and would then turn away with a silent nod to the post-master.
Contents
About the author
More from this genre
See all- G Green ValleyGreen Valley
- The Key Note
- M The MarneThe Marne
- C The Coming of the LawThe Coming of the Law
- W Works of George W. PeckWorks of George W. Peck
- B The Black StarThe Black Star
Books like this one
Reviews and discussion
No ratings yet. Be the first reader to rate this book.
Rate this book
Pick a star, then sign in. Only readers who confirmed their email can rate.
No comments yet. Share a thought, a question or a favourite passage.
Copyright concern? Read our DMCA policy
Read or download
Public domain book This work is in the public domain and free of copyright. Anyone may read, download and share it.
- EPUB 340 KB
-
KINDLE Send to Kindle Send
- Download the EPUB file to this device.
- Open Amazon's Send to Kindle page, sign in, and add the file. Open Send to Kindle (opens in a new tab)
On a phone: open the downloaded EPUB and share it to the Kindle app.
You can also email the file to your Kindle address (it ends in @kindle.com) from an email address you approved in your Amazon account.
- PDF 988 KB
Downloads start right away. How to open EPUB on your phone
Book facts
- Author
- Edith Wharton
- First published
- 1911
- Reading time
- About 3 hours
- Pages
- 100
- Language
- English
- Genre
- American Classics
- Formats
- PDF, EPUB, Read online, Audiobook
- Audio read by
- Elizabeth Klett