Totally hooked by classics like The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth, we already knew literary master Edith Wharton had substance. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Wharton nailed the hypocrisy of upper class conventionality with her scathing portraits of the turn-of-the-century New York society into which she was born as Edith Newbold Jones. What we didn’t know is how much of a style maven she also was, penning gorgeous and well-respected volumes including The Decoration of Houses and Italian Villas and Their Gardens.
Acknowledging her own style and substance, she – in that all-too-typical self-effacing female way – turned her talents into faults, complaining that she was “too fashionable to be intelligent” in Boston and “too intelligent to be fashionable in New York.” The truth is she won over both cities, making it no surprise that her family is said to be the inspiration for the expression, “keeping up with the Joneses.”
Learn more about this important author and check out Hermione’s Lee’s fascinating new biography of Wharton. Don’t miss Jennie Fields’ new novel, The Age of Desire, which reveals a surprising other side of Edith Wharton — and which you can read about here.
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