Edith Wharton was born January 24, 1862 during the American Civil War. Her parents were descendants of prosperous English and Dutch businessmen and were a part of the of the fashionable New York society that Edith would describe in much of her writing This was a society which the only acceptable goal for a woman was to marry a man from the upper class and become the woman in charge of the household.  

Her family spent 6 years in Europe soon after the end of the war.  She was ill during part of this time. The family moved back to the United States and settled in Newport, Rhode Island. Edith was greatly impressed by Europe and returned there many times and finally settled permanently in Paris in the early 1900s.  

Edith showed an early love for books and made her first attempt at writing a novel when she was only 11 years old.  She wrote poetry at this early time and had her first publication at the age of 13. She was well educated and spoke three foreign languages

After the death of her beloved father in 1885, when she was twenty-three, and seeming on the verge of being considered a spinster, Edith married Edward Wharton, an upper society gentleman from Boston, 12 years her senior.  They traveled quite a bit socializing in New York and Newport. Although comfortable in this lifestyle, she became more and more involved in writing.

By the early 1900s the marriage was beginning to suffer.  Both she and her husband had affairs. In addition, he gradually fell into deep mental illness and was institutionalized in 1912.  Edith divorced him in 1913 and never remarried.

Edith had published her first short story in 1891, and her first story collection, The Greater Inclination, in 1899.  Soon followed a short novel, The Touchstone in 1900, and then her first real novel, The Valley of Decision, in 1902. That same year she began corresponding with Henry James, to whom she had been introduced by mutual friends. He thought highly of her work.  Their friendship grew as James saw her talent grow. The book that made Edith famous was The House of Mirth.  Henry James died in 1916 and her novel, The Age of Innocence shortly followed.

Wharton’s life was also marked her incredible service to France and to the European refugees who flooded Paris during World War I.  This work was recognized by the French government which made her a chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur—the first woman to receive such an honor. When she died in 1937, her coffin was attended by French war veterans on recognition of her adopted country.

Edith Wharton is considered one of the great novelists of the early 20th Century.  Her novels include The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, and the short but powerful love story, Ethan Frome.