Published Works Timeline - The Mount

1877

Fast and Loose

1877

The first novel Wharton wrote was the last to be published. Written from 1876-1877 under the penname David Oliveri between the ages of 14 and 15, it was not published until 1977, forty years after her death. Fast and Loose tells the sad story of Georgie Rivers, who marries a

1878

Verses

1878

Privately printed in Newport by one of her parents (in her memoir, Wharton credited her mother; elsewhere, her father), Verses contains 24 poems by Wharton, née Jones, and 5 translations of German poets. In her own copy, she wrote “Who wrote these verses and this volume owns/ Her unpoetic name

1897

The Decoration of Houses

1897

Wharton’s first major published work was a work of non-fiction, co-authored with Ogden Codman, Jr., a young architect and interior designer from Boston. He had worked on her house in Newport, Land’s End, and the two of them decided to write the book together. A reaction against the dark rooms

1898

Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian

1898

Edith Wharton translated three of the five stories in this collection: “A Great Day” and “College Friends” by Edmondo de Amicis, as well as Enrico Castelnuovo’s “It Snows.” It was part of a series put out by Scribner’s. Although she had lived in Rome as a child and read Dante

1899

The Greater Inclination

1899

Edith Wharton’s first published short story was “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” published in Scribner’s Magazine in 1891. Her first collection of fiction, The Greater Inclination, was also published by Scribner’s but contains none of her early, published fiction, which she considered inferior. Instead, the eight stories collected here mostly appeared for

1900

The Touchstone

1900

Wharton’s first novella (longer than a short story, shorter than a novel), tells of the young lover of a recently deceased, famous female author. He decides to sell her letters to earn money, pretending they were written to a friend of his, so he can marry the woman he loves.

1901

Crucial Instances

1901

Originally titled The Line of Least Resistance after the story she thought was her best, the title was changed and the story removed after a neighbor in Lenox, Emily Vanderbilt Sloane, realized the story of marital infidelity was based on a relative. Wharton replaced the story with two new ones

1902

The Valley of Decision

1902

A historical novel set in the 18th century, The Valley of Decision centers on a young Italian nobleman who attempts to reform his dukedom according to the principles of the Enlightenment. Tragedy soon follows. The novelist Henry James, after reading it, told her to “do New York” instead. She did,

1902

The Joy of Living

1902

Mrs. Patrick Campbell, an English actress who George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion for, requested that Wharton translate this play by the German playwright Hermann Sudermann. The play, with Campbell as the lead—a woman married to a politician whose past romantic entanglements catch up to her—, was briefly performed, to mixed

1903

Sanctuary

1903

Sanctuary tells the story Kate Peyton, who marries a charming, but morally weak, man in hopes that she can provide their child with the moral strength the father lacks. Years later, the now-grown son who has become an architect comes to his mother with a dilemma. The book fared poorly

1904

The Descent of Man

1904

The title comes from a work of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution greatly shaped Wharton’s world-view. The ten stories collected herein range from the comedic “The Other Two,” in which a newly married husband meets his wife’s former husbands, to the ironic tale “Expiation” of a writer aiming at

1904

Italian Villas and Their Gardens

1904

Wharton wanted to write a scholarly work on Italian villas and their gardens, her publisher wanted a more popular work. The compromise: instead of the detailed garden plans she wanted, illustrations by the popular artist Maxfield Parrish. For an interesting comparison, check out Charles Platt’s Italian Gardens (1894). His book,

1905

Italian Backgrounds

1905

One of her several books on Italy, Italian Backgrounds documents several trips she took throughout Italy over more than a decade. The book purposely avoids many of the most famous destinations. As she wrote in a letter, “The most interesting Italy is the one in the background, behind the official

1905

The House of Mirth

1905

The book that made Wharton’s reputation, The House of Mirth features Lily Bart, a beautiful woman of elite New York society. An orphan, dependent upon her aunt for money, at age 29 Bart is rapidly losing her bargaining power in the marriage market. Wharton later wrote, “In what aspect could

1907

Madame de Treymes

1907

Fanny de Malrive, an American unhappily married into an aristocratic French family, wants a divorce so that she can marry John Durham, who she knew from New York. Because of French laws, that is not possible without her husband’s consent. So Durham must negotiate with Madame de Treymes, Fanny’s sister-in-law,

1907

The Fruit of the Tree

1907

Wharton followed her hugely successful novel of elite New York City society, The House of Mirth, with this novel, which largely takes place in a Hudson Valley mill town. For research, she toured a cotton mill in Adams, MA, about 25 miles north of The Mount in the Berkshires. The

1908

The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories

1908

The title story takes place in medieval Italy and tells of a hermit whose life is disrupted by a woman who has fled a convent. The Wild Woman is described as having “little aptitude for the life apart” (i.e. a monastic life). Wharton also named the diary of her affair

1908

A Motor-Flight through France

1908

“The motor-car has restored the romance of travel” is how Wharton begins; the rest of the book backs up her claim. Constrained neither by train tracks nor typical tourist guidebooks, Wharton sees familiar sites from new approaches and explores places seldom visited. Published in October 1908

1909

Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse

1909

Her second collection of poetry contains some of her best poetry, including “Vesalius in Zante,” a historical poem about a 16th-century physician and the source of one of Wharton’s most famous quotes: “There are two ways of spreading light; to be/The candle or the mirror that reflects it.” Many of

1910

Tales of Men and Ghosts

1910

Tales of Men and Ghosts contains 10 short stories written by Wharton written between 1908 and 1910. Contemporary reviews were mixed, but the book was profitable for Wharton as each of the stories were sold for $1,000. Nowadays many of the stories are considered classics, particularly the ghost stories “The

1911

Ethan Frome

1911

In Wharton’s classic tale of winter New England, an engineer brought in to work at a nearby power-house is fascinated by “the most striking figure in Starkfield, though he was but the ruin of a man”: Ethan Frome. Gradually he learns Frome’s story, how twenty-four years ago Ethan Frome, then

1912

The Reef

1912

Anna Leath, the widow of the wealthy but cold Frasier Leath, rekindles her relationship with George Darrow, who wooed her as a youth. However, when she discovers he has had a relationship with her daughter’s governess, everything is thrown into doubt. For advice on this novel, which explores the sexual

1913

The Custom of the Country

1913

“Undine Spragg—how can you?” asks the heroine’s mother in the opening to The Custom of the Country. By the end of the book, which follows the career of Undine Spragg, a beautiful, ambitious woman from the Midwest who marries a succession of men and leaves devastation in her wake, the

1915

Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort

1915

Fighting France begins with the outbreak of World War I and describes how mobilization transformed France and the French. From there, it describes a series of trips Wharton took to the Front, a place few other women were allowed to go. It is also an unusual travel book. Instead of

1916

The Book of the Homeless

1916

Edith Wharton drew upon her wide circle of acquaintances to produce this collection of pieces to raise money for her wartime charities. With an Introduction by Teddy Roosevelt, The Book of the Homeless contains work by Sarah Bernhardt, Jean Cocteau, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Igor Stravinsky, William Butler

1916

Xingu and Other Stories

1916

The opening title story, about a woman’s book club welcoming Osric Dane to discuss her latest novel, The Wings of Death, is one of Wharton’s funniest. The final story, “Bunner Sisters,” about two impoverished sisters who run a small shop and how their lives change once a man comes courting,

1917

Summer

1917

Wharton called Summer her “hot Ethan” probably as much for its setting—summertime in a small New England town near Ethan Frome’s fictional Starkfield—as its content—a young, reluctant librarian named Charity Royall becomes involved with a rich, young architect visiting from Boston. Like many of Wharton’s works, Summer addresses issues such

1918

The Marne

1918

The main character of The Marne is a teenage American boy living in Paris. Too young to enlist for the First Battle of the Marne, he and his family return to America. But, four years later, he is eighteen years old and becomes a Red Cross ambulance driver and participates

1919

French Ways and Their Meaning

1919

The United States Navy selected this book, which was written to explain France to American servicemen, for their ship libraries. One wonders how they reacted when they read the chapter titled “The New Frenchwoman” and found perhaps Wharton’s most explicit argument for women’s rights and criticism of the constraints placed

1920

In Morocco

1920

In September and October 1917, in the middle of World War I, Edith Wharton travelled to Morocco at the invitation of the Resident-General Lyautey. The result was this book, part travel guide, part justification of French imperialism. Published in 1920

1920

The Age of Innocence

1920

Newland Archer, a wealthy young man in 1870s New York City, is engaged to the beautiful, seemingly conventional May Welland. And then the beautiful, decidedly unconventional Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin, returns from Europe. So begins The Age of Innocence. “Yes; it’s good. But of course you and I are the

1922

The Glimpses of the Moon

1922

Nick and Susy Lansing are newly wed, but perhaps not for long. They married because they realized they could travel Europe, living off wedding presents and the goodwill of their friends. Neither have much money and have agreed that if either can find a wealthy spouse, they will divorce. It

1923

A Son at the Front

1923

The son at the front of the title is George, son of impoverished painter John Campton and stepson of the wealthy banker Anderson Brant. While the novel takes place during World War I, and the war is central to the story, it is perhaps most of all about the two

1924

Old New York

1924

The four novellas that make up Old New York each take place in a different decade of the nineteenth century. “False Dawn (The ’Forties)” tells of young man, Lewis Raycie, sent to Italy by his father to purchase paintings, who ends up meeting John Ruskin and ends up buying paintings

1925

The Mother’s Recompense

1925

Kate Clephane, who twenty years earlier left her husband and abandoned her daughter, returns to America from Europe for her daughter’s wedding. To her shock, her daughter’s fiancé is a man who used to be Kate’s lover. Wharton’s personal copy, located in the library at The Mount, has handwritten corrections.

1925

The Writing of Fiction

1925

Although Wharton wrote many articles on writing and writers, this is her only book on the subject. After a chapter on fiction in general, there’s one on short stories, two on novels, and a final chapter on Marcel Proust, a contemporary author she greatly admired. While Wharton expresses strong opinions,

1926

Here and Beyond

1926

Wharton’s first collection of short stories after World War I contains no stories directly about the war. However, it begins with three of her most frightening tales: “Miss Mary Pask,” about a visit that slowly goes awry; “The Young Gentleman,” a Gothic tale of hidden secrets; and “Bewitched,” concerning a

1926

Twelve Poems

1926

Only 130 copies of these 12 poems were published. Several of the poems, such as “The Tryst,” address the death and destruction wrought by World War I. It also contains possibly her most famous poem: “With the Tide.” An elegy for her friend Theodore Roosevelt, “With the Tide” was first

1927

Twilight Sleep

1927

Every minute of Pauline Manafort’s day is planned out in advance, ensuring maximum efficiency. Never mind that some of her activities may contradict one another, what matters is she avoids discomfort, particularly the discomfort of having nothing to do. In this Jazz Age satire, Wharton pokes fun at everything from

1928

The Children

1928

Martin Boyne, a forty-six-year-old American engineer who has spent most of his adult working abroad, travels to Europe to meet up with a newly widowed woman he has long been infatuated with. Along the way, however, he befriends a group of seven children—siblings and half-siblings, a product of their rich

1929

Hudson River Bracketed

1929

Hudson River Bracketed is the first of two novels about Vance Weston, an aspiring writer from the West who visits the Hudson Valley to recover from an illness. While there, he marries one woman, falls in love with another, and becomes an author. The title of the book is supposedly

1930

Certain People

1930

Wharton’s eighth collection contains six stories. “After Holbein” is a darkly comic tale of a society gentleman who mistakenly visits an old friend for dinner. To the horror of the servants, the two dine together, imagining they are surrounded by friends of earlier years and unaware of their present surroundings

1932

The Gods Arrive

1932

The Gods Arrive is only sequel Wharton wrote, though she considered writing sequels to The Valley of Decision and The Age of Innocence. It continues the story of Vance Weston and Halo Tarrant, née Spear, from Hudson River Bracketed as the newly widowed Vance and still married Halo escape to

1933

Human Nature

1933

Wharton dedicated this book to her friend Bernard Berenson, an American art historian and collector who lived in Italy. Fittingly, one story, “A Glimpse,” is about creative expatriates living in Venice. Two other stories are “Her Son,” about a mother who searches for the child she put up for adoption

1934

A Backward Glance

1934

Wharton’s memoir is unconventional. In many ways, it is less about her and more about the people and places who shaped her, with sections on New York City, The Mount, London, Paris, and World War I. It is also highly selective. An entire chapter is devoted to her friendship with

1936

The World Over

1936

The World Over contains two of her most famous stories, “Pomegranate Seed” and “Roman Fever.” “Pomegranate Seed” is the haunting tale of a young wife who slowly becomes convinced her husband is receiving letters from his dead wife. In “Roman Fever,” a sharply ironic examination of friendship, two middle-aged women

1937

Ghosts

1937

“‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ is the pointless question often addressed by those who are incapable of feeling ghostly influences to—I will not say the ghost-seer, always a rare bird, but—the ghost-feeler, the person sensible of invisible currents of being certain places and at certain hours. “The celebrated reply (I

1938

The Buccaneers

1938

“I am writing a new novel of the same period as The Age of Innocence…This one, however, is considerably less innocent,” is how Wharton described The Buccaneers to a friend. She never finished The Buccaneers, which was published a year after her death. It tells of four young American women

1939

Eternal Passion in English Poetry

1939

“Every anthology is always some one person’s anthology,” wrote Wharton somewhat misleadingly in her introduction to this collection of English language love poetry she edited along with her friends Robert Norton and Gaillard Lapsley. Ranging from anonymous ballads to William Butler Yeats, the book is a testament to the breadth