Edith Wharton

A New York City aristocrat and the author of over 50 books, Edith Wharton (born Edith Newbold Jones) wrote poetry and fiction that explored high society life. As a child, she studied with private tutors at governesses at home, and by age 18 she had published poems in magazines including the Atlantic Monthly. In 1879, she married Edward Wharton, a Boston banker. Her first novel, The Valley of Decision, was published in 1902. Wharton’s numerous other books include The Age of Innocence (1920), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Ethan Frome (1911); Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse (1909); The House of Mirth (1905); Crucial Instances (1901); and The Greater Inclination (1899). Wharton was revered for her talent for social satire and comedy. In her manual The Writing of Fiction (1925), she noted Henry James’s influence on her work.

After 1907, Wharton lived in France. In 1934, she published an autobiography, A Backward Glance. She died in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, near Paris, France, on August 11, 1937.