so was heiress Catherine Sloper. A simple, plain girl, she grew up in opulence with a disappointed father and a fluttery aunt in a grand house on Washington Square.

Enter Morris Townsend, a handsome charmer who assures Catherine he loves her for herself and not for her money. But Catherine's revered father sees in Townsend what she cannot. Now, with her tearful aunt Penniman as his amusingly melodramatic ally, Townsend will present Catherine with the hardest choice of her young life....

With a New Introduction and an Afterword by Michael Cunningham, Author of The Hours