Life overview

Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones to George and Lucretia Jones in New York City on January 24, 1862. Edith had two older brothers named Frederic and Harry who were 12 and 16 years old when she came into this world. Edith belonged to an aristocratic New York family with ancestry dating back 300 years. Her role as a daughter of society was to learn the mannerisms and rituals expected of well bred young women in those days. Later she would rebel against this role but as a child she was schooled at home and had the privilege of use of her father's extensive library.

She began, therefore, at an early age to read extensively and make up stories which were acted out for her nanny. Later she would publish her first non-fiction book along with Ogden Codman, The Decoration of Houses.

Edith married Teddy Wharton, 12 years older than she. They lived a life of relative ease with homes in New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Still Edith's marriage was not a fulfilled one. When she discovered Teddy had taken money from her to set up a mistress in Boston, the disintegration of their marriage began. Meanwhile Edith had met and fallen in love with Morton Fullerton and had been sexually awakened as a 46 year old woman living virtually on her own in Paris.

All of these circumstances led to her interest through writing in the thoughts behind the actions of her characters. And characters she created aplenty. Novels flowed from her mind in the years between 1900 and 1938.(See List of Works) Indeed her novels became so popular with the general public that Ms. Wharton was able to live comfortably on her earnings the rest of her life.

Edith divorced Teddy in 1912, having no immediate heirs, and never married again. Instead she traveled extensively by motorcar, helped untiringly with refugees in Paris during the first World War, and actually only returned once again in her lifetime to the United States to accept the Pulitzer prize for her novel, The Age of Innocence.

She held salon where the gifted intellectuals of her time gathered to discuss and share ideas. Teddy Roosevelt, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway were all guests of hers at one time or another. Another facet of Edith's career was her friendship with Henry James whose influence on her writing is inestimable. Edith enjoyed the company of intelligent men during her entire life.

Edith lived in two homes in France, one in the north of Paris, Pavillon Colombe, and one at Hyere, Ste. Claire. Her flat in Paris was at 53 Rue de Varenne. She retired to Pavillon Colombe and continued to write until a stroke took her life in August 1937. She is buried in the American Cemetery at Versailles. The inscription on her grave stone reads: "O Crux Ave Spes Unica", which translates: "Hail, o cross, the one hope."