EDITH WHARTON - The Bookman visits her home


Edith Wharton is America's most famous woman of letters, and the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize. She wrote over 40 books in 40 years, including novels, collections of short stories and poems, and authoratative works on architecture, gardens, inetrior design, and travel. She was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale, and the first woman elevated to full membership in the Academy of Arts & Letters.
And today I was privileged to visit her home, The Mount, near Lennox in Massachusetts. The Mount was designed and built by Wharton and although she was already 40 when she moved in in 1902, she considered it to be "her first real home".

After Wharton moved to France, where she lived until her death in 1937, The Mount was variously owned and was a school for a time as well as the headquarters of a Shakesperean company. Edith Wharton Restoration, a non profit organisation, was formed in 1980 to buy and restore the property with restoration of the enormous multi-level home commencing in 1997. Today it seemed to me to be still a work-in-progress with perhaps 80+% of the house and grounds restored to its original glory.

I felt so guilty at not having ever read anything by her that after a tour of the house and formal gardens I visited the on-site bookstore and bought a copy of  her novel ETHAM FROME which as first published in 1911 and according to the cover blurb "is widely regarded as Elizabeth Wharton's most revealing novel and her finest achievment in fiction". It is a slender tome running to but 128 pages not including the author's foreword and an Afterword by Alfred Kazin.

POSTSCRIPT-
I picked up a leaflet at the bookstore which advertised Berkshire Wordfest at The Mount which will include 29 authors and 17 events over three days- July 23-25. Chcek the details at www.EdithWharton.org