First published 1977
R. W. B. Lewis examines the remarkable life of Edith Wharton, from her privileged New York childhood through her emergence as one of America's foremost novelists. Lewis chronicles Wharton's journey from the rigid social conventions of Gilded Age Manhattan to her literary salons in Paris, where she found both creative freedom and personal fulfillment. The biography explores her troubled marriage to Teddy Wharton, her passionate affair with Morton Fullerton, and her courageous work during World War I. Lewis draws on extensive correspondence and personal papers to reveal how Wharton transformed her intimate knowledge of high society's constraints into novels that exposed the moral complexities beneath polished surfaces. The book offers readers an intimate portrait of a woman who broke free from the very world she immortalized in fiction.
Genres: biography, literary-fiction, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: New York, Paris
Period: Gilded Age, World War I
Paperback · Harpercollins Publisher