The Younger Set

Captain Philip Selwyn comes home to New York from army service in the Philippines, divorced while he was away, and settles in his sister's household to find his former wife remarried in the same set he moves in. Then he falls in love with his sister's young ward, Eileen, while holding himself bound by vows the law has already dissolved. Chambers wrote the polished society novel and knew exactly which drawing rooms his readers wanted to see inside; this is one of the few in which he takes a moral question seriously. Fifty-five plates by painters including Henry Sargent and Childe Hassam follow the novel through dinner parties, club nights, and Broadway at 42nd Street, the New York interiors and streets Selwyn moves among.