The Valley of Decision Illustrated Edition

Download or read book The Valley of Decision Illustrated Edition written by Edith Wharton and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-08-25 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edith Wharton's first novel, The Valley of Decision, is one of her most important and distinguished novels, yet it has received relatively little (and mostly superficial) attention, in spite of its initial popularity. Set in northern Italy in the late eighteenth century, it concerns the decisions that must be made by Odo Valsecca, a young man of liberal ideas who inherits a dukedom during the years of the French Revolution. Forced to choose between conflicting loyalties - those to the forces of social reform with which he allied himself before he came to power, or those of the feudal tradition to which he belongs by blood - Odo must define himself.