Edith Wharton
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"It is perhaps not uninstructive to note that we have no English word to describe the class of household ornaments which French speech has provided with at least three designations, each indicating a delicate and almost imperceptible gradation of quality. In place of bric-à-brac, bibelots, objets d'art, we have only knick-knacks--defined by Stormonth as "articles of small value.""--The Decoration of Houses (1897) by Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman |
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Edith Wharton (1862 – 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class pre-World War I society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics. In such works as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence she employed both humor and profound empathy to describe the lives of New York's upper-class and the vanishing of their world in the early years of the 20th century.
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Books
Novels
- The Touchstone, 1900
- The Valley of Decision, 1902
- Sanctuary, 1903
- The House of Mirth, 1905
- Madame de Treymes, 1907
- The Fruit of the Tree, 1907
- Ethan Frome, 1911
- The Reef, 1912
- The Custom of the Country, 1913
- Summer, 1917
- The Marne, 1918
- The Age of Innocence, 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
- The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922
- A Son at the Front, 1923
- Old New York, 1924
- The Mother's Recompense, 1925
- Twilight Sleep, 1927
- The Children, 1928
- Hudson River Bracketed, 1929
- The Gods Arrive, 1932
- The Buccaneers, 1938
- Fast and Loose, 1938 (first novel, written in 1876-1877)
Short story collections
- The Greater Inclination, 1899
- Crucial Instances, 1901
- The Descent of Man and Other Stories, 1903
- The Other Two, 1904
- The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories, 1908
- Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910
- Xingu and Other Stories, 1916
- Here and Beyond, 1926
- Certain People, 1930
- Human Nature, 1933
- The World Over, 1936
- Ghosts, 1937
Poetry
- Verses, 1878
- Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse, 1909
- Twelve Poems, 1926
Non-fiction
- The Decoration of Houses, 1897
- Italian Villas and Their Gardens, 1904
- Italian Backgrounds, 1905
- A Motor-Flight Through France, 1908 (travel)
- Fighting France, from Dunkerque to Belfort, 1915 (war)
- French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919
- In Morocco, 1920 (travel)
- The Writing of Fiction, 1925 (essays on writing)
- A Backward Glance, 1934 (autobiography)
As editor
- The Book of the Homeless, 1916