All literary critics and sources that give accounts of Edith Newbold Jones Whartons life seem to agree on the basic facts. Wharton was born in 1862 into a wealthyfamily and raised during Americas Guilded Age. She was born into the lavish world ofinherited wealth, one which she benefited from greatly. This life of luxury providedWharton with a rich source of material which she used to challenge the attitudes ofAmericas Guilded Age in her novels (World,p.1). She spent portions of her childhoodgrowing up in places like Paris, Rome, and London, but received most of her education inthe United States. Wharton exhibited her talents in writing at a very early age. I cannotremember a time when I did not want to make up stories Wharton said in herautobiography (DeCecco, p.1). In 1885 Edith Wharton married the very well-to-do Edward Wharton and thecouple continued to live in American high society. However, Whartons marriage provedearly on to be an unhappy one, and she was to suffer a series of nervous breakdowns as aresult (DeCecco, p.1). In order to ease the strains of her marriage, Wharton began towrite again like she did as a child. Her first work was published in 1889; it was a book oninterior decorating. Sixteen years later Wharton would write her first best seller, House ofMirth. In the year 1911, she departed from her usual themes of jealousy, class system,and the condition of women in society to write Ethan Frome , possibly her most famouspiece of writing (DeCecco, p.2). However, The World of Edith Wharton disagreeswith this fact saying that Ethan Frome was written in the year 1912. Two years laterWharton got a divorce from her husband which would end their disconsolate marriage. Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer Prize in the year 1921 for her novel, Age of Innocence. Shortly after winning the Pulitzer Prize, she became the first woman to receive anhonorary degree from Yale University in 1924 (World, p.2). Whartons last nove...
