13. The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
OPD: 2010
format: 173-page hardcover
acquired: Library book read: Mar 9 time reading: 4:18, 1.5 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Young Adult biography theme: Wharton
locations: lots – New York City, Bar Harbor ME, Lennox MA, Paris, Florence, London etc.
about the author: born 1950? An elementary school librarian and young adult author who was born in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and also grew up in Ohio, and Massachusetts, and eventually settled in Indiana.

This is actually a young adult biography. It's one of 12 library books I checked out on Wharton. I picked it up to scan through and found myself wanting to keep reading. (I thought it would take only two hours to read it all, but I slowed down). I liked that it's a nice efficient biography that covers the essentials of Wharton's very complicated life. It explained a lot of stuff I was only loosely aware of or didn't know at all. I didn’t know she hated James Joyces's and Virginia Woolf’s stream of consciousness, considering it a bunch of novel elements that weren’t actually put together as a novel (and she thought Ulysses was vulgar with too much low-level humor)

Wharton was of the leisure class, born into the Jones family, the family who is the basis of the phrase "keeping up with the Jones". Her escape in the title is a reference to her leaving both her restrictive social world (documented in her fiction) and her unhappy marriage. She lived her later life as a divorcee in France, winning the French Legion of Honor for her work during WWI, and was otherwise surrounded by bachelors, like Henry James, and publishing a book a year.

Things I found interesting:

Wharton met her husband when she and her family were in a rush to get her married before their own financial problems became apparent. But she was always much wealthier than her husband.

Wharton's marriage was happy until he started having mental health issues that were inherited, and neither understood nor treatable. The book suggests he had later-stage bipolarism.

Wharton surrounded herself with bachelors. She avoided married men to keep from jealousies and scandals, even if these relationships were mainly Platonic.

Her closest relationship was with Walter Berry, an American diplomat who she once expected to ask for marriage, but he didn't. Unmarried his whole life, he read every one of works before they were sent to publishers and was with her during most of her difficult times.

I knew about Wharton's extra-marital affair and how it was only found out years after her death. What I didn't know was that she left a love book about this affair with her papers, written to "you". So for years there was a mystery about who this lover might be. (Until his own letters were found in the 1960's)

She needed the money from her book sales, and she made a lot from her books.

Edith Wharton was a special writer and unique personality, and she makes a great subject for a biography.

2024
https://www.librarything.com/topic/358760#8472886 ( )

This biography of popular novelist Edith Wharton tells of her rigid upper-class upbringing, childhood fascination with creating stories, and adult life filled with independence and adventure. Photographs, Afterword, Source Notes, Bibliography, Works by Edith Wharton, Index.

As a writer, I am ashamed about how little I knew of Edith Wharton until reading this new biography. She was a woman ahead of her time and unafraid to be herself. Very inspirational. The historical images are a great addition. I've since downloaded a couple of Wharton's books in ebook format to read so I can become more familiar with her work. ( )

Superbly written biography! Great insights into Wharton's personal life and the social mores of upper class milieu in which she lived. ( )

Reviewed by Jennifer Rummel for TeensReadToo.com

Edith Wharton lived a privileged life. She was born into the Jones family - a wealthy family who were prominent members of New York society. From an early age, her mother knew Edith was different. Edith was shy, she admired the truth, she liked to make up stories, and she loved reading.

She spent her formative years touring Europe, which left a deep impression. Upon her return, she made her debut. In one summer she met two men. She developed a deep relationship with one, but he left at the end of the summer. The other man she befriended and then married. She fell out of favor with society, but that didn't stop her.

Edith wrote in the mornings. In the beginning, she had three poems printed in respected publications. One of the publishers was interested in more of her writing. After her short story appeared, she began work on several others that would be published into one volume. However, the idea of her stories in print threw her into a panic, and she began to work on non-fiction projects.

She traveled throughout Europe and met many bachelors who would become her dearest friends. Several of these men were writers. She would share her ideas and her writings with them. After publishing her first novel, one of these men, Henry James, wrote with advice for her next book.

Edith took his advice to heart and wrote a serialized tale published in a magazine that would later become THE HOUSE OF MIRTH. Her success was huge. She kept writing, which paid for her house to be built, her trips to Europe, and her lifestyle. Until she died, Edith wrote and behaved in the fashion she desired.

Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge writes a fascinating and engaging non-fiction book describing an amazing woman who dared to step outside the bounds of society and live life on her own terms. ( )