Edith Wharton
At a glance:
- Series: Dictionary of World Biography: Twentieth Century
- Categories: Literature, Publishing
- Subcategories: Authors, Writers, Novelists, Short Story Writers
- Curriculum: American History 1901-1950, Women’s History, American History 1878-1900
Article abstract: Edith Wharton was a novelist who was noted for her portrayal of the decline of New York aristocracy and for her characters’ trapped sensibilities.
Early Life
Edith Newbold Jones, the daughter of George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelender Jones, was born into a society of aristocrats who led a leisured, proper life and disdained business and politics. Wharton’s family was a prime example of “old” New York: moneyed, cultivated, and rigidly conventional.
According to custom, young Edith was educated by tutors and...
[The entire page is 2360 words long]