Edith Wharton [DECKLE EDGE] (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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. Wharton's 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 Wharton's 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 Lee's Reading Guide to Edith Wharton

Hermione Lee, about whose Virginia Woolf the Amazon.com reviewer wrote, "Biographies don't get much better than this," has turned for her next major subject to Edith Wharton. Wharton's 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."

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. One might think that R.W.B. Lewis's excellent 1975 biography had precluded the need for another book about Edith Wharton. Not so. Reading Lee's superb new biography is akin to comparing a fine watercolor sketch to a vivid masterpiece. Access to previously unrevealed letters, and the same meticulous research for which her Virginia Woolf biography was praised, allow Lee to illuminate many dark corners of Wharton's life and to reinterpret previously accepted opinions. Most important, Lee exhibits an intuitive empathy with her subject (never glossing over her less admirable characteristics) and thus animates Wharton as a fully dimensional figure of complex and contradictory values and impulses—a woman of fierce ambition and lingering self-doubt, of generous friendships and ignoble snobbery and prejudices, with a zest for travel and adventure despite frequent, debilitating ill health. Lee challenges several traditional stereotypes about Wharton, including her literary relationship with Henry James—more peer than acolyte, Lee shows—and with Walter Berry and Bernard Berenson. (Although she provides many instances of Wharton's violent anti-Semitism, Lee does not note the paradox of Wharton's close relationship with Berenson.) In no other biography is there a more perceptive analysis of how Wharton's life was reflected in her work. Her nightmarish marriage and midlife passionate affair with Morton Fullerton, the straitjacket social code that she violated by seeking a divorce were transmogrified in the novels, stories and poetry (some of it erotic). Lee's portrait of Wharton as a strong-willed woman determined to surmount the background she drew on for inspiration, a woman obsessed with "double lives, repression, sexual hypocrisy, hidden longings," is a major achievement. 24 pages of photos. 75,000 first printing. (Apr. 30)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 880 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition. first american edition (April 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375400044
• ISBN-13: 978-0375400049
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.9 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #431,848 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best Wharton biographies, April 30, 2007

By	z hayes (plano,texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

At 880 pages, with illustrations,this weighty tome is in my opinion the best biography of Edith Wharton. Hermione Lee who also gave us "Virginia Woolf" [another wonderful biography] is dedicated to research and detail, and manages to thoroughly flesh out her subjects. Given the complex life and character of Edith Wharton, the task of dissecting her life and accomplishments seems like a herculean task that Ms Lee does excellently. We learn of Ms Wharton's accomplishments not only as a great writer, having authored novels that have tackled the delicate issues of human frailty and desires [Custom of the Country, House of Mirth, and Age of Innocence, among others], but also her talents in designing, gardening & her philanthropical pursuits. Ms Wharton was also a prolific traveler, and this biography truly showcases her many talents besides writing. We learn of Ms Wharton's early marriage to a much older man, a union that was not successful and led to a divorce many years later. We also discover Ms Wharton's late blooming as an author [she was almost 40] and her affair with an American journalist and close friendships [mainly with the opposite sex]. The biography also gives us insight into Wharton's inspiration for her writing [drawn heavily from events in her own life], and all in all, it is a laudable effort at giving us tremendous insight into the life of a talented and complicated author.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wharton and Peace, May 25, 2007

By	Kyle P. Wagner (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just finished Hermione Lee's biography, which took me roughly a month to finish (I usually don't spend more than a few days on a book.), and its girth occasionally hurt my back. (That's a joke...) I have not read other biographies Lee has written (though I do own "Virginia Woolf", and was impressed with Lee's insight of Woolf on the DVD of "The Hours"), so I can't compare, but I gather the Virginia Woolf biography is very good. I have read other biographies of Edith Wharton; R.W.B. Lewis', and Cynthia Griffin Woolf's excellent "A Feast of Words", and Lee's is an exhaustive reiteration of much that has come before, with some subtle additions and revisions of thought. I have a new vision of Wharton during her "Neurasthenic" period, which struck her early in marriage. She gardened, wrote and traveled extensively, whereas I had the impression she was bed-ridden and slightly invalid. The life force of Edith Wharton appears to have been astonishing and exhausting. Very few of us would pass her formidable "muster", and I understand completely why Henry James labeled her "The Angel of Devastation" (Disappointing discovery that James was virulently anti-suffrage).

The book is at times, dispassionately academic. It has moments, and at its best one has the sense that Lee is weaving, or knitting, a complete picture of who Edith Wharton might actually have been. Yes, there are some things we will never know, but I get the idea. Some chapters moved along briskly, other didn't (for me). The chapter called "Italian Backgrounds" is loaded with minute detail about those kinds of gardens and Wharton's interest in them (as you would guess from the title). I'm not a gardener, however, and found myself losing interest - there is A LOT of description of Italian Gardens. Illustrations would have helped (me). I did enjoy HL's analysis of EW's Italian novel "The Valley of Decision" (the book is completely worth it for the analysis of the Wharton's writings. I wish Penguin, or N.Y.R.B, or Vintage would publish an affordable and attractive edition of "The Valley of Decision") As another reviewer observed, the book does get bogged down with detail from time to time. While I certainly couldn't write such a book (I disagree with the assertion that it was not well researched, on the contrary, the research seems dizzying and at the very least thorough: nothing is perfect.), I'm impressed that Hermione Lee did.

Wharton comes across as delightfully bitchy with the upper classes. The Breakers is described as a "Thermopylae of Bad Taste". Mrs. Wharton, on a tour of a wealthy acquaintances' home, was informed that this was the woman's "Louis Quinze Room", to which Mrs. Wharton replied, looking about through her lorgnette, "Why, my dear?" (Her knowledge of architecture and historical interiors was encyclopedic, and would currently entitle her to a Masters Degree. She would have several, in fact... and a Doctorate or two.) In a letter she stated that an unnamed party "...decided to have books in their library." Her story "The Line of Least Resistance" borrowed too closely from an angered Emily Sloane's personal life, and Ogden Codman may have summed up Edith best saying, " Poor Pussy is of course very unpopular... she goes out of her way to be rude to people."

Most familiar with EW know how involved she was with the building and all details of each new Wharton residence, and there were many. One of the virtues of Lee's book is that we get a complete view of events; the timelines, the day-to-day occurrences in the process (es), also the transgressions (notably with Ogden Codman and the building of the Mount.) It is clear that Edith (or "Puss") wore the pants in the family. Teddy comes across as an affable, but slightly bumbling, "Club" man of the "Old Chap" sportsman type. He was not intellectually inclined, and hopelessly mismatched with the polar opposite Edith Jones.

The latter half of the book is dedicated to Wharton's life in France; her affair with Morton Fullerton, homes in the Rue De Varenne (and social place in The Faubourg.), and of course her valiant, tireless war work, all covered in great detail. Interesting that Proust may have been a translator of "The House of Mirth", and though she and Proust were many times over connected socially, they never met. The pairing is a no-brainer, and bearing in mind Wharton's conscious or unconscious predilection for homosexual companions (Henry James, Andre Gide to name a few - even her passionate mid-life love affair was with the prodigiously bi-sexual Fullerton), it's possible that Proust and Wharton would have been great friends, though Lee points out that Proust was primarily interested in Countesses. When read together "The House of Mirth", "The Custom of the Country" (read it if you haven't - it's one of EW's most satisfying, ruthless, and well-written novels.), and "The Age of Innocence" (more sublime with every reading), could be compared to Wharton's miniature version of Proust. Have your French dictionary ready though, as there is much quotation of letters written in French with minimal translation - another category (like architecture, and gardening) in which Lee assumes her reader has a working knowledge.

I had hoped there might be more information about Wharton's frosty mother Lucretia, and Edith's relationship with her. Lee points out that little written material relating to her parents has survived. However, Lee suggests that Wharton's own haughty nature may have been an inherited trait of Mama, and that "Lu" is front and center in many, many instances of Wharton's writing. Wharton was candid in her version of her mother. I wonder if it ever occured to her that she may have been more similar to Lucretia than different. (Perhaps Lily's mother in "The House of Mirth", who expresses distaste at people who "live like pigs" is a sketch of Lucretia Jones) It's been commonly thought that Lucretia had Edith's young poetry published in a volume titled "Verses" in Newport, but it was more likely her more intellectually sympathetic fathers's doing. Which makes more sense, as one pictures the exasperation Mother must have felt with the bafflingly intelligent Edith - forcing Mama to entertain her friends while the child is seized with the urge to "Make-Up" (write stories)

All in all, "Edith Wharton" is an exhaustively researched biography of considerable merit. There were sections that moved ahead with full steam, and some that sort of drag (for me) and need to be plowed through in order to finish, but I certainly don't resent the information. For the most part it has beautifully "woven" quality about it. It does seem that it would benefit with more editing; the amount of smaller (I hesitate to say lesser) detail is mind numbing. Her great friendship with Henry James is beautifully documented. Included is the account of the elaborate hoax she and James New York publisher orchestrated in order to give James a generous advance on a future book (meant to bolster his flagging self-esteem), which was really just a very generous monetary gift from Edith. The analysis of stories and novels is excellent, and well worth the price of admission. I read in an interview of Hermione Lee that she felt she would not be thought "smart enough" if she were actually able to meet Edith Wharton. Perhaps the length and breadth stems from that thought, that she is writing to prove herself worthy of her subject. I think Ms. Lee may rest easy with her next subject: she is a perfectly capable biographer.

Also recommended: Cynthia Griffin Wolff's "A Feast of Words", a tightly written compellingly analyzed study of Mrs. Wharton

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unfulfilled Life, April 28, 2007

By	C. Hutton "book maven" (East Coast, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This massive, nearly 900 page biography of Edith Wharton will be considered the definitive account of her life. Ms. Lee performed extensive research to flesh out this writer of conventional social graces and of the inner emotional life (see "The Age of Innocence"). Of interested is the thwarted life of Edith Wharton, trapped in a loveless marriage and embarking upon a mid-life affair with a confused American.
A writer of short stories, poems and novels, she wrote of ghost stories, decorating, social satires of New York, and war correspondence from the Great War. Edith Wharton was a woman of many talents who will keep the reader entralled long after the biography ends.