"Summer" was written in what Edith Wharton described as 'a high pitch of creative joy' in 1917, and was first published by D. Appleton later the same year. Wharton regarded it as a twin piece to her earlier novella "Ethan Frome" (1911) (and she even called it 'my hot Ethan'). Like the earlier narrative the events of the story are set in a small, poor town in a remote part of New England.

"Summer", conversely, deals with a far less privileged group living in an unidentified rural area of New England.
Charity comes from poverty and is taken in by the wealthy and successful Lawyer Royall when she is five years old. Lawyer develops a romantic interest in Charity after his wife dies, but things go awry. First when Lawyer loses drunken control and enters her bedroom when she is seventeen and then again in response to the apparent love between her and the already betrothed young architect, Lucius Harney. A predictable result of her actions forces her to make some difficult choices.