Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937)

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Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones to a wealthy New York family. Her experiences with the privileged urban elite provided inspiration for most of her fiction. Her family’s status and her marriage, though mismatched, to banker Edward Wharton allowed her the time and space to devote to her fiction. However, her marriage was an unhappy one, and Wharton divorced her husband in 1913. Wharton focused on charity work during World War I and eventually moved to Paris, where she died in 1937. She was the first woman to earn an honorary doctorate from Yale University and a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence (1920).

Wharton is best known for her searing portrayal of aristocratic society in the Gilded Age. She often explores the theme of women’s social roles and expectations, and like many late nineteenth century female authors, her work is concerned with the limits of the traditional marriage. Her fiction is often described using the terminology of the novel of manners, a genre of literature that explores social class and conventions.