page_title: Edith Wharton
section_title: 1880s
hierarchical_section_title: Edith Wharton / Biography / 1880s
caption_attribution_description: English: Edith Wharton collection/Beinecke 10061396. Edith Wharton as a young woman, ca. 1889
context_page_description: Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Her most famous works include the novels The Age of Innocence and The House of Mirth as well as the novella Ethan Frome.
context_section_description: Wharton married in 1885 and began to build upon three interests—American houses, writing, and Italy. 
  On April 29, 1885, at age 23, Wharton married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior, at the Trinity Chapel Complex. From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of the same social class and shared her love of travel. The Whartons set up house at Pencraig Cottage in Newport. They then bought and moved to Land's End on the other side of Newport in 1893 for $80,000. Wharton decorated Land's End with the help of designer Ogden Codman. The Whartons purchased their New York home, 884 Park Avenue, in 1897. They traveled abroad from February to June between 1886 and 1897–mostly to Italy, but also to Paris and England.
  From the late 1880s until 1902, Teddy Wharton suffered from acute depression, and the couple ceased their extensive travel. At that time his depression manifested as a more serious disorder, after which they lived almost exclusively at their estate The Mount. During those same years, Wharton herself was said to suffer from bouts of depression and health issues with asthma.
  In 1908 her husband's mental state was determined to be incurable. In the same year, she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for The Times, in whom she found an intellectual partner. She divorced Edward Wharton in 1913 after 28 years of marriage. Around the same time, Edith was beset with harsh criticisms leveled by the naturalist writers.
  In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She was also a garden designer, interior designer, and a taste-maker of her time. She wrote several design books, including her first major published work, The Decoration of Houses (1897), co-authored by Ogden Codman. Another of her "home and garden" books is the generously illustrated Italian Villas and Their Gardens of 1904.
caption: Edith Wharton collection/Beinecke 10061396. Edith Wharton as a young woman, ca. 1889
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