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The Reef | [Edith Wharton]
Play The Reef

The Reef

  • UNABRIDGED
  • by Edith Wharton
  • Narrated by Kristen Underwood
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  • Regular Price :$20.97

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  • Average Customer Rating
  • Overall
    (27)
    Performance
    (8)
    Story
    (7)
 
  • LENGTH
    10 hrs and 41 mins
  • RELEASE DATE
    01-01-95
  • AUDIO FORMATS
    About Audio Formats
    2 3 4 Enhanced Audio
 

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Publisher's Summary

A challenge to the moral climate of the day, The Reef follows the fancies of George Darrow, a young diplomat en route from London to France, intent on proposing to the widowed Anna Leath. Unsettled by Anna's reticence, Darrow drifts into an affair with Sophy Viner, a charmingly naive and impecunious young woman whose relations with Darrow and Anna's family threaten his prospects for success.

The affair becomes the reef on which four lives are in danger of foundering: two of them innocent and two of them burdened with experience and tinged with desperation. This is a story of the drastic effects of a casual sexual betrayal and a clear-eyed assessment of the possibilities and limitations of human love.

(P)1995 Blackstone Audio Inc.

What the Critics Say

"The novel...was most enthusiastically admired by Henry James, and one can see why, for it is most Jamesian....It marks the peak of her most brilliant period of creativity....And for us it is a chance to see what can be achieved in the pursuit of moral truths." (Anita Brookner)

What Members Say

Average Customer Rating

3.4 (27 ratings)
5 star
 (8)
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 (6)
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2 star
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 (3)
Overall
3.0 (7 ratings)
5 star
 (1)
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2 star
 (2)
1 star
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Story
3.8 (8 ratings)
5 star
 (3)
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3 star
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Performance
  •  
    Kenneth Calgary, Alberta, Canada 03-20-09
    Kenneth Calgary, Alberta, Canada 03-20-09
    HELPFUL VOTES
    151
    ratings
    REVIEWS
    66
    27
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    Overall
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    Story
    "Another compelling Wharton-style dilemma"

    I have always found the work of Edith Wharton deeply compelling, because I empathize so strongly with the characters and even as I watch them make disastrous mistakes, I can't help wishing there was some way they could avoid the inevitable tragic consequences of their mistakes. This was so with Ethan Frome and The House of Mirth, and it is equally so of The Reef. However, this book ends with an odd and surprising conclusion that to my mind was ambiguous. I felt this detracted from what was otherwise a complex and powerful story.

    4 of 4 people found this review helpful
  •  
    Yennta L.A., CA 09-11-10
    Yennta L.A., CA 09-11-10 Member Since 2004
    HELPFUL VOTES
    146
    ratings
    REVIEWS
    119
    44
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    FOLLOWING
    9
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    Overall
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    "Wharton's Best?"

    I haven't read them all, but I've read many and for me, this is her very best. The characters are fascinating. The hero is a dolt, but Wharton makes him fascinating in his doltishness. The heroine was simply born at the wrong time, but she's touching and her fate involves you. Great narrator!

    3 of 4 people found this review helpful
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