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= Edith_Wharton =
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Introduction
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Edith Newbold Wharton (; ; January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) was an
American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's
knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray,
realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she
became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her
novel 'The Age of Innocence'. She was inducted into the National
Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Her other well-known works are 'The
House of Mirth', the novella 'Ethan Frome', and several notable ghost
stories.
Early life
============
Edith Newbold Jones was born on January 24, 1862, to George Frederic
Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander, at their brownstone at 14 West
Twenty-third Street in New York City. To her friends and family, she
was known as "Pussy Jones". She had two elder brothers, Frederic
Rhinelander and Henry Edward. Frederic married Mary Cadwalader Rawle;
their daughter was landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. Edith was
baptized April 20, 1862, Easter Sunday, at Grace Church.
Wharton's paternal family, the Joneses, were a very wealthy and
socially prominent family, having made their money in real estate. The
saying "keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father's
family. She was related to the Rensselaers, the most prestigious of
the old patroon families, who had received land grants from the former
Dutch government of New York and New Jersey. Her father's first cousin
was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. Fort Stevens, in New York, was named
for Wharton's maternal great-grandfather, Ebenezer Stevens, a
Revolutionary War hero and general.
Wharton was born during the Civil War. However, in describing her
family life, Wharton does not mention the war, except that their
travels to Europe after the war were due to the depreciation of
American currency. From 1866 to 1872, the Jones family visited France,
Italy, Germany, and Spain. During her travels, the young Edith became
fluent in French, German, and Italian. At the age of nine, she
suffered from typhoid fever, which nearly killed her, while the family
was at a spa in the Black Forest. After the family returned to the
United States in 1872, they spent their winters in New York City and
their summers in Newport, Rhode Island. While in Europe, she was
educated by tutors and governesses. She rejected the standards of
fashion and etiquette that were expected of young girls at the time,
which were intended to allow women to marry well and to be put on
display at balls and parties. She considered these fashions
superficial and oppressive. Edith wanted more education than she
received, so she read from her father's library and from the libraries
of her father's friends. Her mother forbade her to read novels until
she was married, and Edith obeyed this command.
Early writing
===============
Wharton wrote and told stories from an early age. When her family
moved to Europe and she was just four or five, she started what she
called "making up." She invented stories for her family and walked
with an open book, turning the pages as if reading while improvising a
story. Wharton began writing poetry and fiction as a young girl, and
she attempted to write her first novel at the age of 11. Her mother's
criticism quashed her ambition, however, and she turned to poetry. She
was 15 years old when her first published work appeared, a translation
of a German poem "Was die Steine Erzählen" ("What the Stones Tell") by
Heinrich Karl Brugsch, for which she was paid $50. Her family did not
want her name to appear in print, since writing was not considered a
proper occupation for a society woman of her time. Consequently, the
poem was published under the name of a friend's father, E. A.
Washburn, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who supported women's
education. In 1877, at the age of 15, she secretly wrote a novella,
'Fast and Loose'. In 1878, her father arranged for a collection of two
dozen original poems and five translations, 'Verses,' to be privately
published. Wharton published a poem under a pseudonym in the 'New York
World,' in 1879. In 1880, she had five poems published anonymously in
the 'Atlantic Monthly', an important literary magazine. Despite these
early successes, she was not encouraged by her family or her social
circle, and though she continued to write, she did not publish
anything more until her poem "The Last Giustiniani" was published in
'Scribner's Magazine' in October 1889.
The "debutante" years
=======================
Between 1880 and 1890, Wharton put her writing aside to participate in
the social rituals of the New York upper classes. She keenly observed
the social changes happening around her, which she later used in her
writing. Wharton officially came out as a debutante to society in
1879. She was allowed to bare her shoulders and wear her hair up for
the first time at a December dance, which was given by a Society
matron, Anna Morton. Wharton began a courtship with Henry Leyden
Stevens, the son of Paran Stevens, a wealthy hotelier and real estate
investor from rural New Hampshire. His sister, Minnie, married Arthur
Paget. The Jones family did not approve of Stevens.
In the middle of her debutante season, the Jones family returned to
Europe in 1881 for her father's health. Still, her father, George
Frederic Jones, died of a stroke in Cannes in 1882. Stevens was with
the Jones family in Europe during this time. After returning to the
United States with her mother, Wharton continued her courtship with
Stevens, announcing their engagement in August 1882. The month the two
were to marry, the engagement ended.
Wharton's mother, Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones, moved back to
Paris in 1883, and she lived there until her death in 1901.
1880s–1900s
=============
On April 29, 1885, at the age of 23, Wharton married Edward Robbins
(Teddy) Wharton, who was 12 years her senior, at the Trinity Chapel
Complex in Manhattan. From a well-established Boston family, he was a
sportsman and a gentleman of the same social class and shared her love
of travel. The Whartons set up house at Pencraig Cottage in Newport.
In 1893, they bought a house named Land's End, on the other side of
Newport, for $80,000, and moved into it. Wharton decorated Land's End,
with the help of designer Ogden Codman. In 1897, the Whartons
purchased their New York home, 884 Park Avenue. Between 1886 and 1897,
they traveled overseas, in the period from February to June, mostly
visiting Italy but also Paris and England. From her marriage onwards,
three interests came to dominate Wharton's life: American houses,
writing, and Italy.
From the late 1880s until 1902, Teddy Wharton suffered from chronic
depression. The couple, then, ceased their extensive travel. At that
time, his depression became more debilitating, after which they lived
almost exclusively at their estate, The Mount, in Lenox,
Massachusetts. During those same years, Wharton, herself, was said to
suffer from asthma and periods of depression.
In 1908, Teddy Wharton's mental condition was determined to be
incurable. In that year, Wharton began an affair with Morton
Fullerton, an author, and foreign correspondent for 'The Times' of
London, in whom she found an intellectual partner. She divorced Edward
Wharton, in 1913, after 28 years of marriage. Around the same time,
she was beset with harsh literary criticism from the naturalist school
of writers.
In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She
was also a garden designer, an interior designer, and a taste-maker of
her time. She wrote several design books, including her first major
published work, 'The Decoration of Houses' (1897), co-authored by
Ogden Codman. Another of her "home and garden" books is the generously
illustrated 'Italian Villas and Their Gardens' of 1904, illustrated by
Maxfield Parrish.
Travels and life abroad
=========================
Over the course of her life, she crossed the Atlantic 60 times. In
Europe, her primary destinations were Italy, France, and England. She
also went to Morocco. She wrote many books about her travels,
including 'Italian Backgrounds' and 'A Motor-Flight through France'.
Her husband, Edward Wharton, shared her love of travel and for many
years, they spent at least four months of each year abroad, mainly in
Italy. Their friend, Egerton Winthrop, accompanied them on many
journeys there. In 1888, the Whartons and their friend, James Van
Alen, took a cruise through the Aegean islands. Wharton was 26. The
trip cost the Whartons $10,000 and lasted four months. She kept a
travel journal during this trip that was thought to be lost, but was
later published as 'The Cruise of the Vanadis', now considered her
earliest known travel writing.
In 1897, Edith Wharton purchased Land's End in Newport, Rhode Island,
from Robert Livingston Beeckman, a former U.S. Open Tennis
Championship runner-up who became governor of Rhode Island. At the
time, Wharton described the main house as "incurably ugly." Wharton
agreed to pay $80,000 for the property, and she spent thousands more
to alter the home's facade, decorate the interior, and landscape the
grounds.
In 1902, Wharton designed The Mount, her estate in Lenox,
Massachusetts, which survives, today, as an example of her design
principles. She wrote several of her novels there, including 'The
House of Mirth' (1905), the first of many chronicles of life in old
New York. At The Mount, she entertained the cream of American literary
society, including her close friend, novelist Henry James, who
described the estate as "a delicate French chateau mirrored in a
Massachusetts pond". Although she spent many months traveling in
Europe nearly every year with her friend Egerton Winthrop (a
descendant of John Winthrop), The Mount was her primary residence
until 1911. When living there and while traveling abroad, Wharton was
usually driven to appointments by her longtime chauffeur and friend
Charles Cook, a native of nearby South Lee, Massachusetts. When her
marriage deteriorated, she decided to move permanently to France,
living first at 53 Rue de Varenne, Paris, in an apartment that
belonged to George Washington Vanderbilt II.
Wharton was preparing to vacation for the summer when World War I
broke out. Though many fled Paris, she moved back to her Paris
apartment on the Rue de Varenne and for four years was a tireless and
ardent supporter of the French war effort. One of the first causes she
undertook, in August 1914, was the opening of a workroom for
unemployed women. Here, they were fed and paid one franc a day. What
began with 30 women soon doubled to 60 women and their sewing business
began to thrive. When the Germans invaded Belgium in the fall of 1914
and Paris was flooded with Belgian refugees, she helped to set up the
American Hostels for Refugees, which managed to get them shelter,
meals, and clothes, and eventually created an employment agency to
help them find work. She collected more than $100,000 on their behalf.
In early 1915, she organized the Children of Flanders Rescue
Committee, which gave shelter to nearly 900 Belgian refugees who had
fled when their homes were bombed by the Germans.
Aided by her influential connections in the French government, she and
her long-time friend Walter Berry (then president of the American
Chamber of Commerce in Paris) were among the few foreigners in France
allowed to travel to the front lines during World War I. She and Berry
made five journeys between February and August 1915, which Wharton
described in a series of articles that were first published in
'Scribner's Magazine' and later as 'Fighting France: From Dunkerque to
Belfort', which became an American bestseller. Travelling by car,
Wharton and Berry drove through the war zone, viewing one devastated
French village after another. She visited the trenches and was within
earshot of artillery fire. She wrote, "We woke to a noise of guns
closer and more incessant, and when we went out into the streets, it
seemed as if, overnight, a new army had sprung out of the ground".
Throughout the war, she worked in charitable efforts for refugees, the
injured, the unemployed, and the displaced. She was a "heroic worker
on behalf of her adopted country". On April 18, 1916, Raymond
Poincaré, then-President of France, appointed her Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour, the fifth class of the country's highest honour, in
recognition of her dedication to the war effort. Her relief work
included setting up workrooms for unemployed French women, organizing
concerts to provide work for musicians, raising tens of thousands of
dollars for the war effort, and opening tuberculosis hospitals. In
1915, Wharton edited a charity benefit volume, 'The Book of the
Homeless,' which included essays, art, poetry, and musical scores by
many major contemporary European and American artists, including Henry
James, Joseph Conrad, William Dean Howells, Anna de Noailles, Jean
Cocteau, and Walter Gay, among others. Wharton proposed the book to
her publisher, Scribner's, handled the business arrangements, lined up
contributors, and translated the French entries into English. Theodore
Roosevelt wrote a two-page introduction, in which he praised Wharton's
effort and urged Americans to support the war. She also kept up her
own work, continuing to write novels, short stories, and poems, as
well as reporting for 'The New York Times' and keeping up her enormous
correspondence. Wharton urged Americans to support the war effort and
encouraged America to enter the war. She wrote the popular romantic
novel, 'Summer' in 1917, the war novella, 'The Marne,' in 1918, and 'A
Son at the Front,' in 1919 (published 1923). When the war ended, she
watched the Victory Parade from the Champs Elysees' balcony of a
friend's apartment. After four years of intense effort, she decided to
leave Paris for the quiet of the countryside. Wharton settled 10 mi
north of Paris in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, buying an 18th-century house
on seven acres of land that she called Pavillon Colombe. She lived
there, in summer and autumn, for the rest of her life, spending
winters and springs on the French Riviera at Sainte Claire du Vieux
Chateau in Hyères.
Wharton was a committed supporter of French imperialism, describing
herself as a "rabid imperialist", and the war solidified her political
views. After the war, she traveled to Morocco, as the guest of
Resident General Hubert Lyautey and wrote the book 'In Morocco', full
of praise for the French administration, Lyautey, and particularly,
his wife.
During the post-war years, she divided her time between Hyères and
Provence, where she finished 'The Age of Innocence,' in 1920. She
returned to the United States only once, after the war, to receive an
honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1923.
Later years
=============
'The Age of Innocence' (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction,
making Wharton the first woman to win the award. The three fiction
judges - literary critic Stuart Pratt Sherman, literature professor
Robert Morss Lovett, and novelist Hamlin Garland - voted to give the
prize to Sinclair Lewis for his satire 'Main Street', but Columbia
University's advisory board, led by conservative university president
Nicholas Murray Butler, overturned their decision and awarded the
prize to 'The Age of Innocence'. Wharton was also nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928, and 1930.
Wharton was friend and confidante to many prominent intellectuals of
her time: Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, and André Gide
were all her guests, at one time or another. Theodore Roosevelt,
Bernard Berenson, and Kenneth Clark were valued friends, as well.
Through her friendship with Clark she became the godmother of his son,
Colin. Particularly notable was her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald,
described by the editors of her letters as "one of the better known
failed encounters in the American literary annals." She spoke fluent
French, Italian, and German, and many of her books were published in
both French and English.
In 1934, Wharton's autobiography, 'A Backward Glance,' was published.
In the view of Judith E. Funston, writing on Edith Wharton in
'American National Biography', What is most notable about 'A Backward
Glance,' however, is what it does not tell: her criticism of Lucretia
Jones [her mother], her difficulties with Teddy, and her affair with
Morton Fullerton, which did not come to light until her papers,
deposited in Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library,
were opened in 1968.
Death
=======
On June 1, 1937, Wharton was at her French country home (shared with
architect and interior decorator Ogden Codman), where she was at work
on a revised edition of 'The Decoration of Houses', when she suffered
a heart attack and collapsed.
She died of a stroke on August 11, 1937, at 'Le Pavillon Colombe', her
18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt.
She died at 5:30 p.m., but her death was not known in Paris. At her
bedside was her friend, Mrs. Royall Tyler. Wharton was buried in the
American Protestant section of the Cimetière des Gonards in
Versailles, "with all the honors owed a war hero and a chevalier of
the Legion of Honor ... a group of some one hundred friends sang a
verse of the hymn 'O Paradise'..."
Career
========
Despite not publishing her first novel until she was forty, Wharton
became an extraordinarily productive writer. In addition to
her 15 novels, seven novellas, and eighty-five short stories, she
published poetry, books on design, travel, literary and cultural
criticism, and a memoir.
In 1873, Wharton wrote a short story and gave it to her mother to
read. Stinging from her mother's critique, Wharton decided to write
only poetry. While she constantly sought her mother's approval and
love, she rarely received either, and their relationship was a
troubled one. Before she was 15, Wharton wrote 'Fast and Loose'
(1877). In her youth, she wrote about society. Her central themes came
from her experiences with her parents. She was very critical of her
work and wrote public reviews criticizing it. She also wrote about her
own experiences with life. "Intense Love's Utterance" is a poem
written about Henry Stevens.
In 1889, she sent out three poems for publication, to 'Scribner's',
'Harper's' and 'Century'. Edward L. Burlingame published "The Last
Giustiniani" for 'Scribner's'. It was not until Wharton was 29 that
her first short story was published: "Mrs. Manstey's View" had very
little success, and it took her more than a year to publish another
story. She completed "The Fullness of Life", following her annual
European trip with Teddy. Burlingame was critical of this story, but
Wharton did not want to make edits to it. This story, along with many
others, speaks about her marriage. She sent 'Bunner Sisters' to
Scribner's, in 1892. Burlingame wrote back that it was too long for
Scribner's to publish. This story is believed to be based on an
experience she had as a child. It did not see publication until 1916,
and it is included in the collection called 'Xingu'.
After a visit with her friend, Paul Bourget, she wrote "The Good May
Come" and "The Lamp of Psyche". "The Lamp of Psyche" was a comical
story, with verbal wit and sorrow. After "Something Exquisite" was
rejected by Burlingame, she lost confidence in herself. She started
travel writing, in 1894.
In 1901, Wharton wrote a two-act play called 'Man of Genius'. This
play was about an English man who was having an affair with his
secretary. The play was rehearsed but was never produced. Another 1901
play, 'The Shadow of a Doubt', which also came close to being staged
but fell through, was thought to be lost, until it was discovered, in
2017. It had a radio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 3, in 2018. It
wouldn't be until 2023, over a century later, that the world stage
premiere took place in Canada at the Shaw Festival, directed by Peter
Hinton-Davis.
She collaborated with Marie Tempest to write another play, but the two
only completed four acts, before Marie decided she was no longer
interested in costume plays. One of her earliest literary endeavors
(1902) was the translation of the play 'Es Lebe das Leben' ("The Joy
of Living"), by Hermann Sudermann. 'The Joy of Living' was criticized
for its title, because the heroine swallows poison, at the end, and
was a short-lived Broadway production. It was, however, a successful
book.
Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by subtle use of dramatic
irony. Having grown up in upper-class, late-19th-century society,
Wharton became one of its most astute critics, in such works as 'The
House of Mirth' and 'The Age of Innocence'.
Themes
========
Versions of her mother, Lucretia Jones, often appeared in Wharton's
fiction. Biographer Hermione Lee described it as "one of the most
lethal acts of revenge ever taken by a writing daughter." In her
memoir, 'A Backward Glance', Wharton describes her mother as indolent,
spendthrift, censorious, disapproving, superficial, icy, dry and
ironic.
Wharton's writings often dealt with themes such as "social and
individual fulfillment, repressed sexuality, and the manners of old
families and the new elite." Maureen Howard, editor of 'Edith Wharton:
Collected Stories', notes several recurring themes in Wharton's short
stories, including confinement and attempts at freedom, the morality
of the author, critiques of intellectual pretension, and the
"unmasking" of the truth. Wharton's writing also explored themes of
"social mores and social reform" as they relate to the "extremes and
anxieties of the Gilded Age".
A key recurring theme in Wharton's writing is the relationship between
the house as a physical space and its relationship to its inhabitant's
characteristics and emotions. Maureen Howard argues "Edith Wharton
conceived of houses, dwelling places, in extended imagery of shelter
and dispossession. Houses - their confinement and their theatrical
possibilities ... they are never mere settings."
Influences
============
American children's stories containing slang were forbidden in
Wharton's childhood home. This included such popular authors as Mark
Twain, Bret Harte, and Joel Chandler Harris. She was allowed to read
Louisa May Alcott but Wharton preferred Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland' and Charles Kingsley's 'The Water-Babies, A
Fairy Tale for a Land Baby'. Wharton's mother forbade her from reading
many novels and Wharton said she "read everything else but novels
until the day of my marriage." Instead Wharton read the classics,
philosophy, history, and poetry in her father's library including
Daniel Defoe, John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, Alphonse de Lamartine,
Victor Hugo, Jean Racine, Thomas Moore, Lord Byron, William
Wordsworth, John Ruskin, and Washington Irving. Biographer Hermione
Lee describes Wharton as having read herself "out of Old New York" and
her influences included Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Friedrich
Nietzsche, T. H. Huxley, George Romanes, James Frazer, and Thorstein
Veblen. These influenced her ethnographic style of novelization.
Wharton developed a passion for Walt Whitman.
Works
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Source:
Novels
========
* 'The Valley of Decision', 1902
* 'The House of Mirth', 1905
* 'The Fruit of the Tree', 1907
* 'The Reef', 1912
* 'The Custom of the Country', 1913
* 'Summer', 1917
* 'The Age of Innocence', 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
* 'The Glimpses of the Moon', 1922
* 'A Son at the Front', 1923
* 'The Mother's Recompense', 1925
* 'Twilight Sleep', 1927
* 'The Children', 1928
* 'Hudson River Bracketed', 1929
* 'The Gods Arrive', 1932
* 'The Buccaneers', 1938 (unfinished)
Novellas and novelette
========================
* 'The Touchstone', 1900
* 'Sanctuary', 1903
* 'Madame de Treymes', 1907
* 'Ethan Frome', 1911
* 'Bunner Sisters', 1916 (written in 1892)
* 'The Marne', 1918
* 'Old New York', 1924 1. False Dawn; 2. The Old Maid; 3. The Spark;
4. New Year's Day
* 'Fast and Loose: A Novelette', 1938 (written in 1876-1877)
Poetry
========
* 'Verses', 1878
* 'Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse', 1909
* 'Twelve Poems', 1926
Short story collections
=========================
* 'The Greater Inclination', 1899, includes Souls Belated.
* 'Crucial Instances', 1901
* 'The Descent of Man and Other Stories', 1904
* 'The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories', 1908
* 'Tales of Men and Ghosts', 1910
* 'Xingu and Other Stories', 1916
**"Xingu"; "Coming Home"; "Autres Temps ..."; "Kerfol"; "The Long
Run"; "The Triumph of Night"; "The Choice"; "Bunner Sisters"
* 'Here and Beyond', 1926
* 'Certain People', 1930
* 'Human Nature', 1933
* 'The World Over', 1936
* 'Ghosts', 1937
**"All Souls'"; "The Eyes"; "Afterward"; "The Lady's Maid's Bell";
"Kerfol"; "The Triumph of Night"; "Miss Mary Pask"; "Bewitched"; "Mr.
Jones"; "Pomegranate Seed"; "A Bottle of Perrier"
* 'Roman Fever and Other Stories', 1964
**"Roman Fever"; "Xingu"; "The Other Two"; "Souls Belated"; "The Angel
at the Grave"; "The Last Asset"; "After Holbein"; "Autres Temps"
* 'Madame de Treymes and Others: Four Novelettes', 1970
**"The Touchstone"; "Sanctuary"; "Madame de Treymes"; "Bunner Sisters"
* 'The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton', 1973
**"The Lady's Maid's Bell"; "The Eyes"; "Afterward"; "Kerfol"; "The
Triumph of Night"; "Miss Mary Pask"; "Bewitched"; "Mr Jones";
"Pomegranate Seed"; "The Looking Glass"; "All Souls"
* 'The Collected Stories of Edith Wharton', 1998 (Carroll & Graf
Publishers; paperback, 640 pages)
**"The Pelican"; "The Other Two"; "The Mission of Jane"; "The
Reckoning"; "The Last Asset"; "The Letters"; "Autres Temps ..."; "The
Long Run"; "After Holbein"; "Atrophy"; "Pomegranate Seed"; "Her Son";
"Charm Incorporated"; "All Souls"; "The Lamp of Psyche"; "A Journey";
"The Line of Least Resistance"; "The Moving Finger"; "Expiation"; "Les
Metteurs en Scene"; "Full Circle"; "The Daunt Diana"; "Afterward";
"The Bolted Door"; "The Temperate Zone"; "Diagnosis"; "The Day of the
Funeral"; "Confession"
* 'The New York Stories of Edith Wharton', 2007 paperback 452 pages,
NYREV publishers
**"Mrs. Manstey's View"; "That Good May Come"; "The Portrait"; "A Cup
of Cold Water"; "A Journey"; "The Rembrandt"; "The Other Two"; "The
Quicksand"; "The Dilettante"; "The Reckoning"; "Expiation"; "The
Pot-Boiler"; "His Father's Son"; "Full Circle"; "Autres Temps"; "The
Long Run"; "After Holbein"; "Diagnosis"; "Pomegranate Seed"; "Roman
Fever"
Non-fiction
=============
* 'The Decoration of Houses', 1897
*
[
https://books.google.com/books/about/Italian_Villas_and_Their_Gardens.html?id=KWUAAAAAYAAJ
'Italian Villas and Their Gardens'], illustrated by Maxfield Parrish,
1904
* 'Italian Backgrounds', 1905
* [
https://books.google.com/books?id=By82AAAAMAAJ 'A Motor-Flight
Through France'], 1908
* 'The Cruise of the Vanadis', 1910
* 'Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort', 1915
* 'French Ways and Their Meaning', 1919
* 'In Morocco', 1920 (travel)
* 'The Writing of Fiction', 1925
* 'A Backward Glance', 1934 (autobiography)
* 'Edith Wharton: The Uncollected Critical Writings', Edited by
Frederick Wegener, 1996
* 'Edith Wharton Abroad: Selected Travel Writings, 1888-1920', 1995,
Edited by Sarah Bird Wright
* "Autres Temps" in 'Virginia's Sisters', 2023
As editor
===========
* 'The Book of the Homeless', 1916
Theater
=========
* 'Shadow of a Doubt', 1901
*'The House of Mirth' was adapted as a play in 1906 by Edith Wharton
and Clyde Fitch.
*'The Age of Innocence' was adapted as a play in 1928. Katharine
Cornell played the role of Ellen Olenska.
*'The Old Maid' was adapted for the stage by Zoë Akins in 1934. It was
staged by Guthrie McClintic and starred Judith Anderson and Helen
Menken. The play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in May 1935.
When published, the play had both Akins and Wharton's names on the
copyright.
*'Shadow of a Doubt' made its world stage premiere in 2023 directed by
Peter Hinton-Davis produced by the Shaw Festival. The show was
designed by Gillian Gallow (Set & Costume) Bonnie Beecher
(Lighting) and projections by mixed media artist HAUI (Live Video).
The show starred Katherine Gautier as Kate Derwent.
Adaptations
======================================================================
Source (except where otherwise indicated):
Ballet
========
*'Ethan Frome' was adapted by Cathy Marston as a one-act ballet titled
'Snowblind' for the San Francisco Ballet. The ballet premiered in
2018, with Ulrik Birkkjaer as Ethan, Sarah Van Patten as Zeena and
Mathilde Froustey as Mattie.
Film
======
*'The House of Mirth', a 1918 silent film adaptation of the 1905 novel
directed by French film director Albert Capellani, starring Katherine
Harris Barrymore as Lily Bart. It is considered to be a lost film.
*'The Glimpses Of The Moon', a 1923 silent film adaptation of the 1922
novel directed for Paramount Studios by Allan Dwan, starring Bebe
Daniels, David Powell, Nita Naldi and Maurice Costello. It is
considered to be a lost film.
*'The Age of Innocence', a 1924 silent film adaptation of the 1920
novel directed for Warner Brothers by Wesley Ruggles, starring Beverly
Bayne and Elliott Dexter. It is considered to be a lost film.
*'The Marriage Playground', a 1929 talking film adaptation of the 1928
novel 'The Children' directed for Paramount Studios by Lothar Mendes,
starring rising star Fredric March in leading role (as Martin Boyne),
Mary Brian (as Judith Wheater), and Kay Francis (as Lady Wrench).
*'The Age of Innocence', a 1934 film adaptation of the 1920 novel
directed for RKO Studios by Philip Moeller, starring Irene Dunne and
John Boles.
*'Strange Wives', a 1934 film adaptation of the 1934 short story
'Bread Upon the Waters' directed for Universal by Richard Thorpe,
starring Roger Pryor (as Jimmy King), June Clayworth (as Nadja), and
Esther Ralston (as Olga). It is considered to be a lost film.
*'The Old Maid,' a 1939 film adaptation of the 1924 short novella
directed by Edmund Goulding starring Bette Davis.
* A 1944 film version of the 1911 novel 'Ethan Frome' starring Joan
Crawford was proposed, but never came to fruition.
*'The Children' directed by Tony Palmer and released in 1990, starring
Ben Kingsley and Kim Novak.
*'Ethan Frome' directed by John Madden and released in 1993, starring
Liam Neeson and Patricia Arquette.
*'The Age of Innocence' directed by Martin Scorsese and released in
1993, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder and Michelle Pfeiffer.
* 'The Reef' directed by Robert Allan Ackerman and released in 1999.
*'The House of Mirth' directed by Terence Davies and released in 2000,
starring Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart.
Radio
=======
* 'The Age of Innocence' had a broadcast.
Television
============
*'The Touchstone', a live broadcast on CBS April 1951. First Wharton
adaptation on television.
*"Grey Reminder"--the April 30, 1951 episode of NBC's 'Lights Out'--is
an adaptation of Wharton's story, "The Pomegranate Seed", starring
Beatrice Straight, John Newland, Helene Dumas and Parker McCormick.
*'Ethan Frome', a 1960 (CBS) TV US adaptation, directed by Alex Segal,
starring Sterling Hayden as Ethan Frome, Julie Harris as Mattie Silver
and Clarice Blackburn as Zenobia Frome.
*'Looking Back', a 1981 TV US loose adaptation of two biographies of
Edith Wharton: 'A Backward Glance', Wharton's own 1934 autobiography
& 'Edith Wharton', a 1975 biography by R.W.B. Lewis (1976 Bancroft
Prize-winner).
*'The House of Mirth', a 1981 TV US adaptation, directed by Adrian
Hall, starring William Atherton, Geraldine Chaplin and Barbara Blossom
*'Afterward' and 'Bewitched' are both featured in the 1983 Granada
Television series 'Shades of Darkness'.
*'The Buccaneers', a 1995 BBC mini-series, starring Carla Gugino and
Greg Wise
*'The Buccaneers', a 2023 Apple TV+ streaming series. Starring
Kristine Frøseth.
Bilingual editions
======================================================================
* Miss Mary Pask. Calambac Publishing House, Germany 2025, bilingual
edition: English/German, ISBN 978-3-943117-41-7.
In popular culture
======================================================================
* Edith Wharton was honored on a U.S. postage stamp issued on
September 5, 1980.
* In 'The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles', Edith Wharton (Clare
Higgins) travels across North Africa with Indiana Jones in Chapter 16,
'Tales of Innocence'.
* Edith Wharton is mentioned in the HBO television series 'Entourage'
in the 2007 third season's 13th episode: Vince is handed a screenplay
for Wharton's 'The Glimpses of the Moon' by Amanda, his new agent, for
a film to be directed by Sam Mendes. In the same episode, period films
of Wharton's work are lampooned by agent Ari Gold, who says that all
her stories are "about a guy who likes a girl, but he can't have sex
with her for five years, because those were the times!" Carla Gugino,
who plays Amanda, was the protagonist of the BBC-PBS adaptation of
'The Buccaneers' (1995), one of her early jobs.
*'Gilmore Girls' makes various witty references to Wharton throughout
the series. In season 1, episode 6 called "Rory's Birthday Parties",
Lorelei jokingly says, "Edith Wharton would be proud", referring to
Emily's extravagant birthday party for Rory. In 'Gilmore Girls: A Year
in the Life' the tradition continues as Lorelei quips Emily with a
Wharton mention in the first episode.
* In a 2009 episode of 'Gossip Girl' called "The Age of Dissonance",
characters put on a production of a play version of 'The Age of
Innocence' and find their personal lives mirroring the play.
* "Edith Wharton's Journey" is a radio adaptation, for the NPR series
'Radio Tales', of the short story "A Journey" from Edith Wharton's
collection 'The Greater Inclination'.
* The American singer and songwriter Suzanne Vega paid homage to Edith
Wharton in her song "Edith Wharton's Figurines" on her 2007 studio
album 'Beauty & Crime'.
*In 'Dawson's Creek', Pacey reads and takes a verbal quiz on 'Ethan
Frome'.
*The Magnetic Fields have a song which summarises the plot of 'Ethan
Frome'.
* Kate Campbell portrays Wharton in episode 3 of season 16 "The Write
Stuff" (September 26, 2022) of the Canadian television period
detective series Murdoch Mysteries.
Sources
=========
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Olsen, Eric B. (2019) "Ethan Frome" Analysis In Context
Further reading
======================================================================
* Armbruster, Elif S. (2011) "Domestic Biographies: Stowe, Howells,
James, and Wharton at Home." New York: Peter Lang ()
* Benstock, Shari (1994) 'No Gifts From Chance: a biography of Edith
Wharton'. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
*Collas, Philippe and Eric Villedary, 'Edith Wharton's French Riviera'
(2002) Paris, New York : Flammarion/Rizzoli ()
*Drizou, Myrto, ed.
'[
https://www.salempress.com/Critical-Insights-Edith-Wharton Critical
Insights: Edith Wharton]' (2018) Salem Press.
* Dwight, Eleanor. (1994) 'Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life, An
Illustrated Biography' New York: Harry N. Abrams.
*
* Hutchinson, Hazel (2015). 'The War That Used Up Words: American
Writers and the First World War.' New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
* Lee, Hermione (2007) 'Edith Wharton.' London: Chatto & Windus;
New York: Knopf.
* Lewis, R. W. B. (1975) 'Edith Wharton: a biography' New York: Harper
& Row
*
* Montgomery, Maureen E. (1998) 'Displaying Women: Spectacles of
Leisure in Edith Wharton's New York' New York: Routledge.
*'Novellas and Other Writings' (Cynthia Griffin Wolff, ed.)
([
http://www.loa.org The Library of America], 1990) , which contains
her autobiography, 'A Backward Glance'.
*'The Letters of Edith Wharton' (R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis, eds.)
, particularly the editorial introductions to the chronological
sections, especially for 1902-07, 1911-14, 1919-27, and 1928-37, and
the editorial footnotes to the letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (June 8,
1925)
* Severi, Rita, Edith Wharton una scrittrice americana in Italia con
poesie e testi inediti, Milano, Mursia, Nov. 2023 ISBN 978-88- 425
6538 -3
*'Twilight Sleep' (R. F. Godfrey, ed.)
* Vita-Finzi, Penelope. (1990) "Edith Wharton and the Art of Fiction."
London: Continuum International Publishing
* Wolff, Cynthia Griffin (1977) 'A Feast of Words: The Triumph of
Edith Wharton' Oxford.
External links
======================================================================
*[
http://www.edithwhartonsociety.org Edith Wharton Society]
*[
http://www.edithwharton.org/ The Mount: Estate and gardens designed
by Edith Wharton]
*[
http://www.c-span.org/video/?165364-1/writings-edith-wharton
"Writings of Edith Wharton"] from C-SPAN's 'American Writers: A
Journey Through History'
*
* Anna Catherine Bahlmann Papers Relating to Edith Wharton. Yale
Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library.
Archival materials
====================
*[
https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1575 Edith
Wharton Collection]. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
*
[
http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/lilly/mss/html/wharton.html#xtocid2477739
The Edith Wharton Papers] at the Lilly Library, Indiana University
* [
https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/ead/nnc-rb/ldpd_4079606
Finding aid to Iola S. Haverstick collection of Edith Wharton
materials at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.]
License
=========
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Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton
