The Age of Innocence

“Is it–in this world–vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?”–Katherine Mansfield

“There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska… . Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature.”–Gore Vidal

“Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?”–E. M. Forster

Edith Wharton was born in 1862 into New York’s upper class. Though this privileged upbringing provided ample material for her novels, it did not foster her artistic development. Educated by private tutors and governesses, her sole prescribed career was marriage. Her 1885 marriage to Edward Wharton proved an emotional disappointment, and she experienced her first nervous breakdown in 1894.

Despite the strains of her marriage, or perhaps because of them, Wharton began writing fiction, publishing her first story in 1889. Her initial published work was a guide to interior decorating, but this was followed by several novels and story collections. These works were produced while the Whartons lived in Newport and New York, traveled in Europe, and built their grand home, The Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts.

During her travels in Europe, she met Henry James, who became a close friend, traveling companion, and the meticulous critic of her fiction. The House of Mirth (1905) achieved both critical acclaim and bestseller status, as did Ethan Frome (1911).

The Whartons divorced in 1913, and Edith took up permanent residence in France. Her literary focus, however, remained on America, particularly the wealthy New York society of her youth. Her major satirical novel, The Custom of the Country, was published in 1913, and The Age of Innocence earned her the Pulitzer Prize in 1921.

In her later years, Wharton was admired by a new generation of writers, including Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She authored approximately thirty books, including her autobiography, A Backward Glance (1934). Edith Wharton died at her villa near Paris in 1937.

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