"Until the raw ingredients of a pudding make a pudding, 
I shall never believe the raw material of sensation and thought can make a work of art without the cook’s intervening."

~ Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York City.

~ She belonged to an aristocratic family with ancestry dating back 300 years.

~ At an early age, she read extensively and made up stories for her nanny. 

~ Edith's mother paid to have her sixteen-year-old daughter's poetry published anonymously in the Atlantic Monthly. 

~ The family, however, worried that such an intellectual daughter might not marry, and tried to discourage further artistic endeavors.

~ In 1885 Edith married Edward "Teddy" Robbins Wharton, a man of leisure from a similar social background who was twelve years older. 

~ They had homes in New York and Rhode Island, but Edith's favorite spot was her country estate in Massachusetts, The Mount.    

~ An avid gardener, she designed elaborate courtyards on her properties. 

~ Following publication of several short stories, her first book The Decoration of Houses had a huge influence on the styles of interior decoration of the day.

~ At the age of 40, her first novel The Valley of Decision was published. 

~ From then on, she averaged more than a book a year for the rest of her life, including Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, Summer and the Pulitzer Prize winner The Age of Innocence.

~ Her marriage was not a happy one. When Edith discovered Teddy had taken money from her to set up a mistress in Boston, she divorced him. 

~ Edith eventually settled in Paris. There, she met and fell in love with Morton Fullerton, a journalist with The London Times. 

~ During World War I, Edith aided refugees and the wounded. At one time she fed and housed 600 war orphans at her own expense. 

~ The French and Belgian governments officially honored her wartime service.

~ Edith was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University.

~ She spent her last years in two beautiful houses in France. 

~ In the summers, she stayed at Pavillon Colombe. In the winters, she stayed at Château Sainte-Claire at Hyères. 

~ She continued to write, to travel and to work in her gardens. 

~ Edith died after suffering a stroke at the age of 75. She is buried in the American Cemetery at Versailles.