The Age of Innocence | Author Biography

Edith Newbold Jones was born to a wealthy family in New York City on January 24, 1862, and soon learned the manners and traditions of society life that would characterize her fiction. Because her family lived in Europe for much of her childhood, she was educated abroad and privately. She enjoyed travel and reading from a young age, and while her parents supported these interests, they disapproved of her ambitions to become an author. Her lifelong love of books, foreign places, and nature would figure into her successful career as a writer. Biographers depict her as a lively, congenial woman who made friends easily. This may account for her friendships with such notable men as author Henry James and Theodore Roosevelt.

Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton

In 1885, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, a banker who was thirteen years her senior. They lived in New York City; Newport, Rhode Island; and Lenox, Massachusetts; and traveled to Europe often. As she became more serious about her writing, Wharton designed and built a home in Lenox, called "The Mount," as a writer's retreat. From 1900 to 1911, she often went there to escape social pressures and immerse herself in undistracted writing. Her marriage was unhappy, however, and because Teddy had numerous affairs, embezzled her money, and struggled with mental illness, Wharton divorced him in 1913. Wharton was independent and never remarried, although rumors persist about two important men in her life who may have been her lovers.

Published in 1905, The House of Mirth was Wharton's first critically acclaimed novel. By this time, she had become a good friend of Henry James, and she followed in his footsteps and became an expatriate in Paris, enjoying extended stays beginning in 1907. When she sold The Mount in 1911, she made Paris her permanent residence. Her talent responded well to the new environment, and she published volumes of short stories and novels, which earned her a faithful following, critical acceptance, and a Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for The Age of Innocence. In addition to being the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, Wharton was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She also received an honorary degree from prestigious Yale University in 1923, one of the few occasions that brought her back to the United States.

Wharton died of cardiac arrest in France on August 11, 1937.