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"Ethan Frome" is a novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1911, set in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The novel is a framed narrative, with an unnamed male narrator spending a winter in Starkfield while in the area on business. He spots a limping, quiet man around the village, who is somehow compelling in his demeanor and carriage. This is Ethan Frome, who is a lifelong resident and a local fixture of the community. The story is about Ethan's deep feelings for Mattie, his wife's cousin, who has for a year lived with Ethan and his sickly wife, Zeena, in order to help out around the house and farm. The novel has been adapted into a film of the same name and a one-act ballet titled Snowblind. The story of Ethan Frome had initially begun as a French-language composition that Wharton had to write while studying the language in Paris. Wharton likely based the story of Ethan and Mattie's sledding experience on an accident that she had heard about in 1904 in Lenox. Critics did take note of the fact that Wharton was always careful to label Ethan Frome as a tale rather than a novel.