Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer and designer, born in New York City in 1862 into the wealthy, closed society she would later portray with such precision. She spent much of her adult life in Europe, especially in France, where she settled and lived until her death in 1937. She wrote about the rules, pressures and quiet cruelties of upper-class life, and about people, often women, caught between desire and convention. Her novels include The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome and The Age of Innocence, which in 1921 made her the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. She also wrote ghost stories, travel books, and a well-regarded work on house and garden design. Her prose is clear, ironic and exact, and her insight into money, marriage and social judgment still feels fresh to modern readers.