The House of Mirth is a tragedy about Lily Bart, a well-born but penniless young woman belonging to New York City's high society of the 1890s. Written by American author Edith Wharton, it came out October 14, 1905. The House of Mirth traces Lily's slow two-year social descent from privilege to a lonely existence on the margins of society as she fails to marry a man of wealth and status to secure her a place in affluent society. Wharton uses Lily as an attack on "an irresponsible, grasping and morally corrupt upper class."