It's a timeless debate, cropping up whenever one becomes a little too attached to an iconic figure: how could anyone so loved possibly be capable of deliberately ending one's own life? Rarely does one see this debate turned toward fictional characters, but it is just such a turn at the center of controversy that has for decades surrounded Edith Wharton's bane-of-college-literature-classes classic, The House of Mirth.

SPOILER ALERT: If you have never read The House of Mirth and plan to do so, you may want to stop reading this article now.

If you have read it (or at least seen the movie), then you know that it has the kind of hair-pullingly despairing ending that makes a girl want to give up turn-of-the-century dramas altogether -- plucky heroine Lily Bart, awash in abject failure and poverty, levels her debts and promptly drowns herself in a lethal dose of the sleeping serum to which she had become addicted.

Yeah, it's pretty much one of the least mirthful novels in the history of the world.

But was Ms. Bart's overdose deliberate, or merely a devastatingly unfortunate accident? This is the question that has raged to multiple answers over the years. Some say an overdose is consistent with the character, while others insist that accidental tragedy would all but completely diffuse any dramatic power and punch the story would have otherwise packed. Superficially, the literal words in the novel make it a cut-and-dry case, but in high society of the industrial age thing were rarely what they seemed. Wharton is clever with her words, weighing wit and knowledge against a rather feigned innocence and desperation for darkness.

She had long since raised the dose to its highest limit, but to-night she felt she must increase it. She knew she took a slight risk in doing so; she remembered the chemist's warning. If sleep came at all, it might be a sleep without waking. But after all, that was but one chance in a hundred; the action of the drug was incalculable, and the addition of a few more drops to the regular dose would probably do no more than procure for her the rest she so desperately needed.

She did not, in truth, consider the question very closely; the physical craving for sleep was her only sustained sensation. Her mind shrank from the glare of thought as instinctively as eyes contract in a blaze of light--darkness, darkness was what she must have at any cost. She raised herself in bed and swallowed the contents of the glass...

But how dark did Ms. Bart really want to get? Was it some sort of silly girlish recklessness that did her in? Surely, one would hope Wharton gave her character more credit than that. If only we had some sort of insight into the writing process, and the journey on which Wharton intended to take her character.

Oh hey, check it out: somebody left a letter from Wharton right inside a first-edition copy. Moreover, it seems to have some answers. How convenient!

Literary biography is never finished...New information keeps turning up. In the case of Wharton, what has just turned up is a letter that casts new light on the vexing question of what exactly happens at the end of her 1905 novel, The House of Mirth.

[...]The letter was found stuck into a first-edition copy of The House of Mirth, along with a poem, dated 1906, by someone apparently besotted with Lily Bart. Stephanie Copeland, the president of the Mount, Whartons house in Lenox, Mass., which has been restored and turned into a museum, has speculated that the poet must have been a friend of Dr. Kinnicutt.

And who was Dr. Kinnicutt, besides the owner of a rather interesting surname? Apparently, he was "a well-known society doctor who specialized in the mental ailments of the well-to-do," who was treating Wharton's husband at the time. Interesting, perhaps, but what does this have to do with the lovely Lily Bart? Plenty, actually. You see, Wharton, being a smart and responsible writer, was doing some research and needed some answers of her own.

The letter begins by resorting to the timeless disguise of the advice-seeker. A friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide, Wharton writes, & has asked me to find out ... the most painless & least unpleasant method of effacing herself.

Only on the second page does Wharton reveal that her friend is in fact a fictional character appearing in the pages of Scribners, explaining, I have heroine to get rid of, and want some points on the best way of disposing of her. Later she asks: What soporific, or nerve-calming drug, would a nervous and worried young lady in the smart set be likely to take to, & what would be its effects if deliberately taken with the intent to kill herself? I mean, how would she feel and look toward the end?

Oh? Oh, really? It would seems, now, that the tables of obviousness have turned. The letter was found in the mid-1980s by Amy Beckwith, when the book and its contents were given to her as a gift, but she has only now come forward with it after hearing of the debate. Thankfully, now the aforementioned debate can finally be put to rest and literary scholars may turn their concentration to other matters. Perhaps.

[Hermione Lee, Oxford English professor] added, Does the letter prove that all along Lily intended to kill herself? I think its quite likely that in December 1904, Wharton was thinking that Lily was going to commit suicide, and that by the time she came to the ending, months later, she changed her mind, because of the way those last pages hold onto so many moral positions at once. I think that, as she went on, she decided that it would be more effective if she left the ending ambiguous. Its actually a much greater book if we dont know for sure.

Well then. May the debate live on and prosper.

_DictionaryGirl_ isn't much of an Edith Wharton fan, but appreciates the social significance of it all. Happy Thanksgiving, kids!

ardour

Canada

March 2006

NOV 22, 2007 08:15 AM

I've always enjoyed ambiguous endings.

LostLucy

USA

December 2006

NOV 22, 2007 08:16 AM

I always considered it suicide. But then, I might've been one of the only people who actually read to the end

FaceForRadio

Dayton, OH

April 2006

NOV 22, 2007 08:22 AM

I forgot about reading that book until now. haha.

I had always just assumed Lily offed herself. I mean, really, could she have fallen any further?

It's the easiest assumption, though the ambiguities make for a great debate for academics . Maybe the ambiguity is there to soften the blow of a society woman's demise?

NoPantsDave

Cincinnati, OH

OLD SKOOL

NOV 22, 2007 08:33 AM

I want to read the full letter. I wonder if she mentions Lily by name. It's quite possible she's already starting some research on another novel and this letter has nothing to do with House of Mirth.

As an odd coincidence, I just started reading Wharton's The Reef yesterday.

MakersMarkman

I'm lost

May 2005

NOV 23, 2007 11:02 AM

Another great article, DG. Personally, I like Hermione Lee's assessment.

xfinitex

East Lansing, MI

August 2005

NOV 26, 2007 05:57 PM

Not a bad book. The ending made me angry however.

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_DictionaryGirl_

NEWSWIRE

San Diego, CA

NOV 22, 2007 07:44 AM