The Life of Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was born as Edith Newbold Jones on January 24th, 1862 in New York City and died on August 11th, 1937. At the young age of four, Edith and her family travelled around Europe for five years in Italy, Spain, Germany, and France. When she returned to New York for her private tutoring, she avidly studied German and French. Then, in 1879, her family returned to Europe for three more years, mostly in France. When Edith returned to the United States again, she married Edward Robbins Wharton and they honeymooned in Europe as well as travelling there extensively during their marriage. As you can see, Europe was a major part of her life at a young age and continued to be throughout her years. She wrote many poems while she lived in France and made them into a book of poems called Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses. She also published her novel Ethan Frome whole she was there.
At the start of World War one, Wharton lived in North Africa. However, she soon moved to Europe yet again but this time to help refugees in France and Belgium. She did a lot of philanthropic work during this time. She helped raise money in a fund for the refugees. She also started some hostels to house them and schools to educate them. For her feminist roles, she helped women support themselves and find ways of making money and getting hired for jobs. Wharton’s friend, Walter Van Rensselaer Berry, a famous American lawyer and diplomat also joined her cause. (He was also friends with other writers such as Henry James and Marcel Proust.) They travelled together to different battlefields and under-staffed hospitals to help tend to the sick and wounded. These experiences led to her personal essays and diary Fighting France, published in 1915, and The Marne, published in 1918. Both essays included personal events and accounts from Edith Wharton’s endeavors in France and Belgium and incorporated things she learned and saw from the whole ordeal. As a result of her philanthropic efforts, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 1916 with the title of Chevalier, knight. This award is and was usually given to French citizens, both men and women, and is not often given to foreigners. It symbolizes “eminent merit” in military or civil life. During World War one, it was more common for non-natives to receive this honor. Many of the allied countries fought battles and war on French territory/soil and they awarded them mostly to soldiers who did so. However, the highest mark/rank they could achieve was Chevalier because the higher ranks have always been, and still are, reserved only for French nationals/citizens.

As I did my research on Edith Wharton’s life, it made me see that her heart always belonged in Europe, France especially. She did a lot of her work while she lived there and always seemed to go back for long periods of time before she finally sold her property in the United States and moved to France full time. She devoted her time, energy, and ultimately her life to her new home and showed her gratitude and love for it when she helped the soldiers and women there during World War one. Her life stories and personal experiences are also very correlated and connected to her work that she accomplished. It shows clearly how strongly she felt for each piece of work she wrote.





Works Cited:
-"Edith Wharton". http://www.online-literature.com/wharton/
-"Roman Fever: Introduction" http://www.enotes.com/roman-fever
-"Edith Wharton's World: Portraits of People and Places". http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/whar3.htm.