is a novella, first published in 1911.

Mattie Silver comes out to bleak rural New England to care for her Cousin Zeena who is suffering from an undefined illness. Zeena's husband Ethan Frome and Mattie fall in love with each other. Torn between the course of duty and a dream of happyness the lovers attempt suicide but end up both crippled. 24 years later, in a living hell, they are cared for by hypochondriac Zeena.

Ethan Frome is available as an ebook free of charge at Project Gutenberg

lived January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937. She published her first novel at age forty and went on to write another 14 novels, seven novellas, 85 short stories, poetry, books on design and travel, literary and cultural criticism, and a memoir. Her 1920 novel The Age of Innocence won the Pulitzer Prize. Wharton was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930.