Over the course of her lifetime, Edith Wharton published over 50 books on topics including travel, literary criticism and interior design, but she is best known for her compelling novels, often based on her own experiences as a member of the New York elite.
Born in 1862, Edith Newbold Wharton (née Jones) was born into a wealthy New York family who had amassed a considerable fortune from real estate and banking. She and her parents spent much of her early childhood in Europe and Wharton would later acknowledge the extent to which this early exposure to European culture influenced her writing. “Happy misfortune, which gave me, for the rest of my life, that background of beauty and old-established order!” she wrote in her 1934 memoir, A Backward Glance.
Returning to New York City at the age of 10, Wharton experienced a sheltered lifestyle, largely spent at the family’s home on 23rd Street. Here she was educated by a private governess and spent many hours reading the contents of her father’s extensive library. The budding author’s first volume of poetry, Verses, was published when she was just 16, but her parents did not encourage her literary ambitions. “In the eyes of our provincial society authorship was still regarded as something between a black art and a form of manual labor”, she later recalled.
Instead, she was encouraged to follow the tried and tested route for a young woman of her social class and find a suitably rich husband to keep her in the style to which she was accustomed. In the end, she had reached the relatively advanced age of 23 by the time that she married a 35-year-old Boston banker named Edward “Teddy” Wharton, a friend of her brother.
Wharton was already approaching middle age by the time that she eventually resumed her writing career in earnest and published her first novel, The Valley of Decision, in 1902. Her big breakthrough came three years later with the critically acclaimed The House of Mirth, a bestseller that drew its inspiration from the exclusive world of American high society which she knew so well. As an insider, Wharton was perfectly placed to satirize its shortcomings, but she went much further than that in laying bare the emotional turmoil felt by so many of the women who were required to set aside their own ambitions to fulfil the expectations of parents and husbands.
Her own marriage ended childless, in 1913, after years of unhappiness on both sides. By this stage Wharton had become a hugely successful and accomplished novelist, well-known for works such as Ethan Frome, and a favorite of one particularly influential figure in the shape of Henry James, whom she considered a literary mentor.
At the outbreak of World War I, Wharton was living in Paris. She stayed there for the entirety of the war and was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her humanitarian efforts. She later moved to Pavillon Colombe, a country retreat just north of the French capital. The American novelist only returned to the States twice more; in 1921, when she became the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and, in 1923, to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University.
Edith Wharton died at her beloved French home, aged 75, in August 1937, but her writing still resonates with readers today. For anyone wishing to explore the work of this influential author, the following list features 10 of her best-known novels.
Ethan Frome
In the early 1900s, Edith Wharton lived with her husband, Teddy, in Massachusetts, and she used her first-hand experience of New England rural life to great effect in this compelling novella which portrays a classic love triangle with an unexpected twist.
Published in 1911, the story is narrated through the eyes of an unnamed visitor to an isolated rural community in New England. Here he meets an impoverished farmer named Ethan Frome, who, as a young man, was badly injured in an accident and is now trapped in a loveless marriage to a woman who despises him. Gradually the visitor learns from the embittered Frome of the tragic events which led to his current predicament, stemming from a hopeless love affair with his wife’s cousin, Mattie, over two decades earlier.
The Age of Innocence
Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel takes its inspiration from the glittering world of upper-class New York City society in the 1870s, which she herself had witnessed as a young girl on the brink of adulthood.
As a member of one of New York’s most respected families, Newland Archer is expected to follow social convention and marry the equally well-connected May Welland. He then meets her captivating cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has shocked New York polite society by announcing her intention to divorce her Polish husband. Archer is increasingly drawn to the exotic Countess, whose boldly independent nature contrasts vividly with that of his more conventional fiancée, and he is eventually compelled to choose between passion and societal duty.
The Custom of the Country
The plot of Edith Wharton’s 1913 satirical comedy of manners revolves around Undine Spragg, the ambitious daughter of a nouveau riche family from the Midwest, who arrives in New York intent on making a marriage that will enhance her social status. The ruthless social climber stops at nothing in achieving her dream of reaching the upper echelons of society, making a series of morally questionable decisions along the way, but ultimately discovers that true satisfaction remains frustratingly just beyond her reach.
Novelist Margaret Drabble memorably described Undine Spragg as “one of the most appalling and fascinating heroines ever created” (The Guardian).
The House of Mirth
Wharton’s compelling 1905 breakthrough novel, which charts the dramatic fall from grace of Lily Bart, has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “a fireworks display of brilliantly sardonic social satire deepened by a story of thwarted love”.
Lily is born into a life of privilege in late 19th-century New York, but by the time that she reaches her late twenties, her family’s fortune has all but gone and she remains unmarried. The impoverished society girl hunts for a suitably wealthy husband who can keep her in the extravagant lifestyle to which she has become accustomed. However, in the end, Lily fails to follow through on any of her marriage proposals because of her lingering feelings for Lawrence Selden, a lawyer who cannot provide her with the financial security she craves. Torn between marrying for love or money, this heralds the start of a downward spiral in Lily’s fortunes, with tragic consequences.
Summer
Like Ethan Frome, this engaging coming-of-age novella is set in New England and involves a protagonist whose desire to escape the confines of living in an isolated rural community has dire consequences.
Summer’s heroine is 17-year-old Charity Royall, who works in the local library and is desperate to escape her unsatisfactory home life with her adoptive father. She embarks on a passionate affair with a sophisticated young city architect named Lucius Harney, who is visiting the town that summer. Yet instead of achieving her ambition for a more fulfilled existence, this relationship proves life-changing in an altogether different way.
Bunner Sisters
Originally written in the early 1890s, but only finally published in 1916, Bunner Sisters is set in New York but differs from most of Edith Wharton’s other work in that it depicts working class life in the city. The author’s fascination with the plight of women compelled to make difficult choices is, however, evident in this compelling novella.
Spinsters Ann Eliza and Evelina Bunner eke out a living by running a run-down millinery business in a shabby district of New York City. They lead a quiet, uneventful life, until a clockmaker named Herbert Ramy arrives on the scene. Having initially shown an interest in Ann Eliza, Herbert turns his attention to the younger Evelina. Ann Eliza unselfishly steps aside to give her younger sister a chance at happiness, but this generous act of self-sacrifice has disastrous consequences for both women.
The Mother's Recompense
The plot of The Mother’s Recompense revolves around the complex relationship between Kate Clephane and her estranged daughter, Anne. In a 1925 review, The Atlantic described the novelist’s treatment of Kate as being “among the best of Mrs. Wharton’s portraits of women”.
Kate has lived in self-imposed exile in Europe for more than two decades, having been driven out of New York because of the scandal arising from her ill-judged adulterous relationship with a wealthy man. Unexpectedly she receives a telegram from her daughter, who is about to be married, and returns to New York in the hope of rekindling their lost relationship. However, when she discovers the identity of her daughter’s fiancé, she is faced with a moral dilemma as she is compelled to confront painful memories from her past.
The Children
One of Wharton’s later works, this comic bittersweet novel chronicles an unmarried middle-aged engineer’s unexpected relationship with a family of seven unruly children. Martin Boyne is on his way to meet Rose, an old flame who has been recently widowed, when he first encounters the Wheater children on board a cruise ship. The eldest, Judith, is just 15 years old, but has taken on the role of protector to her siblings and stepsiblings whilst her wealthy nouveau riche parents enjoy the high life in Venice.
Martin and Rose are portrayed as typical of the old-school New York upper-class society with which Wharton herself was so familiar. Nevertheless, upon coming ashore, Martin becomes increasingly involved in the children’s predicament, particularly when he learns that they are about to be separated and divided between different family members. As his involvement with the Wheater children threatens to derail his prospect of happiness with Rose, Martin finds himself torn between the conventions of the old world order and the new.
A Son at the Front
As a US expatriate living in Paris during World War I, Wharton not only became involved in relief work in the French capital, but also made several visits to military hospitals based close to the fighting at the Western Front. These first-hand wartime experiences profoundly affected the American writer and provided the inspiration for this “heartrending, tragic, powerful” novel (Publishers Weekly).
John Campton, a divorced American artist living in Paris, is enjoying a visit from his only son when war breaks out. Although George has been raised in the States by John’s ex-wife, he was born in France, meaning that he is called up for active service with the French army. Facing the grim prospect of his son being sent to fight at the front, John is compelled to connect with his ex-wife for the first time in many years and to enlist the help of her influential second husband.
Twilight Sleep
Another of Wharton’s later novels, Twilight Sleep takes a satirical look at the Jazz Age society of the 1920s through the experiences of a dysfunctional upper-class New York family. The life of rich socialite Pauline Manford is packed so full of social and charitable activities that she has little time to devote to her family’s needs. Her son Jim’s marriage to party girl Lita is going badly wrong, whilst her 19-year-old daughter, Nona, is embarking on an ill-judged relationship with a married man.
Set against the backdrop of the hedonistic party lifestyle typically associated with the Jazz Age, Wharton excels in her portrayal of a family falling apart at the seams and the conflict between the expectations of the older and younger generations.
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Sources: The Mount, Women & the American Story
