Edith Wharton (Vintage) by Hermione
Lee
Edith Wharton: The Great American Novelist's Life Is Presented In Exquisite Detail By
Biographer Hermione Lee
The definitive biography of one of America’s greatest writers, from the
author of the acclaimed masterpiece Virginia Woolf. Delving into
heretofore untapped sources, Hermione Lee does away with the image of
the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new Edith Wharton--tough,
startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as her fiction. Born in 1862,
Wharton escaped the suffocating fate of the well-born female, traveled
adventurously in Europe and eventually settled in France. After tentative
beginnings, she developed a forceful literary professionalism and thrived in
a luminous society that included Bernard Berenson, Aldous Huxley and
most famously Henry James, who here emerges more as peer than as
master. Whartons life was fed by nonliterary enthusiasms as well: her
fabled houses and gardens, her heroic relief efforts during the Great War,
the culture of the Old World, which she never tired of absorbing. Yet
intimacy eluded her: unhappily married and childless, her one brush with
passion came and went in midlife, an affair vividly, intimately recounted
here. With profound empathy and insight, Lee brilliantly interweaves
Whartons life with the evolution of her writing, the full scope of which
shows her far to be more daring than her stereotype as lapidarian
chronicler of the Gilded Age. In its revelation of both the woman and the
writer, Edith Wharton is a landmark biography. Hermione Lees Reading
Guide to Edith Wharton Hermione Lee, about whose Virginia Woolf the
Amazon.com reviewer wrote, Biographies dont get much better than this,
has turned for her next major subject to Edith Wharton. Whartons classics,
including The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, and Ethan Frome,
are known to many readers, but Lee has prepared exclusively for us a
Reading Guide to Edith Wharton that goes beyond those familiar titles to
unearth lesser-known gems among her remarkable stories and novels,
from the story After Holbein, a masterpiece of ghoulish, chilling satire, to
The Custom of the Country, her most ruthless, powerful, and savage
novel.

Personal Review: Edith Wharton (Vintage) by Hermione Lee
Edith Newbold "Pussy" Jones was born into a wealthy and socially
prominent New York family in 1862. Her father was cold and distant. He
was involved in real estate transactions. Her mother Lucretia was not a
good mentor for her precocious bookworm daughter. Edith had two older
brothers. Her childhood was lonesome punctuated by long trips to the
cities of Europe (her father died in Cannes). Edith received no formal
schooling but fed her retentive mind by study in her father's library.
Wharton was a passionate reader and author from a very early age. She
received no encouragement from her parents being married off to the
much older Edward "Teddy" Wharton in 1885. Teddy was bipolar loving
horses, drinkiing and playing cards with his buddies. Their marriage was a
disaster ending in divorce after 25 years of life together. The couple were
childless.
Edith had a passionate affair at 45 with Morton Fullerton a
newspaperman in Paris who had countless affairs. The couple never
married but remained friendly until Edith's death in 1937.
Edith was a Francophile who did a good deal of relief work during the
first world war winning several honors from the French government. In
politics she was conservative. Wharton was antisemitic, snobbish and
looked down upon persons of color. She was a control freak who
demanded excellence in her writing and life. Edith traveled widely for over
50 years staying in the best hotels; eating in great restaurants and
exploring art museums, libraries and concerts. What a life of privilege!!!
Wharton never married following the divorce from Teddy. Mrs. Wharton
did have several lifelong male friends most notably Walter Barry the
President of the Paris version of the US Chamber of Commerce. She was
also friendly with novelist Aldous Huxley, art historian Bernard Bernson
and several lady friends. The great novelist Henry James was her most
famous literary pal. She is often compared to James in her writing style.
Hermione Lee says as far as we know all of these friendships were
platonic. Wharton's friendships were with the wealthy and artistic elite. The
novelist was a consummate snob who was, nevertheless, viewed as being
kind and loyal by her friends.
Edith Wharton wrote many novels among the most famous being "The
Custom of the Country"; "Ethan Frome"; "The Age of Innocence";
"Glimpses of the Moon" and "Summer". Wharton was a prolific short story
author selling her tales to magazines. Her focus was on the wealthy. She
dealt with marriage. incest, New York society and the the sexual mores of
the well to do. She was disdained by the younger authors of the 1920s for
being old fashioned. She wrote in an elegant style noted for its daring
subject matter.
Hermione Lee is the author of Virginia Woolf as well as this biography on
Wharton. The book is 800 pages long dealing in incredible detail with such
topics as:
a. Wharton's love life and divorce from Teddy.
b. Wharton's many gardens and her books on gardening.

c. Close descriptions of all the fabulous homes Edith owned which are
shown in several pictures included in the book.
d A description of the most important travels Wharton made in her life.
e. Short but well informed synopses and critical comments on her novels
and short stories. We also get a glimpse of her poetry.
f. Discussions of the lives of her closest friends.
g. A loving review of Edith Wharton's World War I volunteer service to
France.
After finishing this book I admire Wharton for her dedication to the craft of
novel authorship. Wharton was a woman of high standards and loyalty to
her friends. She could be frosty but was kind. Her love for animals, friends
in need and loving care for aging servants is commendable. Her snobbish
disdain for those of different races or religions is not appreciated (She
converted to Roman Catholicism in her last few years.). Wharton was a
born storyteller who can still hold the interest of the modern reader.
Hermione Lee is an excellent biographer who knows literature. Her
biography of Edith Wharton is a wonderful book for those willing to devote
the hours needed to read the lengthy text.
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