Talk:Edith Wharton

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untitled[edit]

The inset says she was married to Wharton. In the body, it says the engagement was broken off and stops there. Is there information about when/how they ultimately reconciled and married?

French address[edit]

Hi all,

I just fixed a link to a disambiguation page and I couldn't help but notice a style issue:

St.-Brice-sous-Forêt, Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France, France

I know it's usually the way it is done in the U.S., but a more natural way would be to write this: St.-Brice-sous-Forêt (Val-d'Oise) France


Additionally, although the Val-d'Oise departement does belong to the Ile-de-France region, the region territorial division was created much later after Edith's death, in the 1980's I believe.

You guys can fix it if you feel like it. Tony Bruguier 01:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I rectified/explained the point about Val d'Oise not existing until after her death in my edit of 2 September 2006.CWO 00:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it is Seine-et-Oise, a departamental division that has existed since the time of Napoleon I. I have also corrected the name of the house she died in, mispelt in the 1937 NY Times obituary.

See: http://www.patrimoine-de-france.org/oeuvres/richesses-50-14636-105627-M157434-258679.html

65.206.122.30 (talk) 01:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]


No mention of Edith Wharton's lover, Morton Fullerton? Curious. (And if I've missed it, he's not give much mention.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sjdschwartzstein (talk • contribs) 16:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I write the book[edit]

I've seen mention of an autobio, A Backward Glance, not mentioned. Can somebody confirm? Trekphiler 11:04, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the title of her autobiography, which I've read (in a copy borrowed from a library), so in the few edits I have done, I wasn't able refer to it even if I'd wanted to, though actually the article was (in my view) already a very well written piece and there wouldn't have been any need for me to use the autobio anyway. However, it's presumably worth mentioning in the references, and I'll get the details and add it. CWO 00:14, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, it was already there, as it's contained in one of the books in the references (which was the edition in which I read it), but it was not explicit. I've now made it explicit.CWO 00:30, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Expanded List of Works[edit]

Hope I didn't step on any toes, I added to the list of her published works. I also clicked through the links that exist and updated the disambiguation pages where necessary. Wtbe7560 00:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi--I would like to add a link to an individual short story, "Bunner Sisters," written in 1892 and published in 1916. Any suggestions? Jentuser (talk) 13:03, 2 September 2010 (UTC)jentuser[reply]

Go ahead and add to the works section. Do you know how? Truthkeeper88 (talk) 13:32, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Porn?[edit]

"The Book of the Homeless, featuring writings, art, porn, and musical scores from almost every major European artist of the day..." Uh, is that graffiti, or did she really edit porn? :-) --Tdkehoe 16:05, 17 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Erotica is what educated people would call it. But this is Wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.206.122.30 (talk) 01:35, 19 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Her husband[edit]

Was he related to Jospeh Wharton, the man that founded the Wharton Business School? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahassan05 (talk • contribs) 16:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

External Links[edit]

Hi, I would like to add an external link to a lesson plan on Edith Wharton from EDSITEment, National Endowment for the Humanities. EDSITEment is a long-standing reputable web resource for the humanities with over 400 high-quality lessons for K-12 teachers and students. EDSITEment is part of the Verizon Foundation Thinkfinity partnership along with the Smithsonian Museum of American History, National Geographic, and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The lesson is Edith Wharton: War Correspondent and is a great resource for background information on Wharton's involvement in the war and information on how Wharton and her book "Fighting France, From Dunkerque to Belfort" played a key role in the evolution of war correspondence. Please take a look at the lesson plan and let me know what you think about adding it to this page. Thank you.

Hquon19 (talk) 20:38, 10 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Literary success[edit]

The section "Literary success" seems to be about everything but. What would make a better section title?

--UnicornTapestry (talk) 09:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biography[edit]

I just read a relatively recent book on Wharton: Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton, Vintage Books, London, 2007, ISBN 9780099763512, 854 p. It seems that Wharton was quite secret as to her private life and only recent evidence permits to have a better view of her life. Former biographies may be partly based on legends. The book of Hermione Lee is based on some five years of research. I find that the page gives a really unfair treatment of Wharton’s mental health. Because of a badly assorted marriage, she has been somewhat depressive at times, as everybody could be. The phrase "a toll on Wharton's mental health" is an exaggeration and gives a false image of her. Idem for "divorced in 1913, after she suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to a hospital". (The resource from npg.si.edu uses a more moderate formulation about "in the 1890s" and not a word about a hospital around 1913. Most of the details given here are not mentioned there. The biography in the present state of the Wikipedia page is not sufficiently based on references by Wikipedia standards.) In fact the very reason for the divorce was that *he* was badly mentally ill, *he* had to spend more and more time in hospitals and became really unmanageable. She has been depressed, he died really mad, there is no comparison. My English is to poor to dare write in the page itself. (I hope it is acceptable enough for the discussion page. Sorry if by lack of nuance my critic is too sharp.) Would somebody be so kind to do Edith Wharton justice in the page? Dominique Meeùs (talk) 18:22, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for this post. I have this page on (long) list of articles to improve. It's very much in need of work. I have an Edith Wharton biography, but thanks for posting the details to the newer one. Truthkeeper88 (talk) 18:33, 11 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Intro[edit]

Tempted to delete this sentence, but maybe it's important if it can be clarified:

Around the same time, Edith was overcome with the harsh criticisms leveled by the naturalist writers.

What does it mean? "Overcome by," maybe? And in what sense overcome; she goes on to write her major novels after this. It's unsourced too.KD Tries Again (talk) 14:17, 27 March 2012 (UTC)KD Tries Again[reply]

I'm not sure 'overcome by' changes the sense much. The syntax is a little strange but the meaning seems clear enough. It seems she was overwhelmed by her critics for a while and then went on to write more novels. That doesn't seem strange to me and no doubt the sentence is pointing at some specific event or set of reviews. Syntax often gets a bit mangled as editors do their best to be specific while paraphrasing texts to avoid copyright vios. We can add a cn tag, if you want. I don't think it's a biggie. More research into this would, of course, help, as always. Span (talk) 15:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Adaptations section necessary?[edit]

Usually the film & other adaptations of a work are listed on the article about the work, not its creator. The only reason that I can think of for them to be here is that there aren't articles for all of her works. Jfmantis (talk) 01:40, 15 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Edits for this entire page[edit]

I have to edit a wikipedia page for a class assignment. This is the page that I chosen to do. I will add more to the biography section (what she started writing and when). I also plan on fixing some discrepancies I have found about Edith Wharton's husband. I will also describe more of her writing styles to this article. At this time this is all I have found to fix, but suggestions are welcome and I will fix more as I encounter the problem(s). You may post suggestions here or on my User talk page. Awest-ENG235 (talk) 04:17, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hey @Awest-ENG235: sounds like a great project! Make sure that you include references to increase the verification of content on the page! Make sure to draw sources from academic databases like JStor and Project Muse! Sadads (talk) 16:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome Awest-ENG235! This article is in poor shape and any edits to it will be helpful. Generally the sourcing is poor, so looking forward to your work here. If you have questions please don't hesitate to ask. In the meantime, I've tidied up a bit to make editing around the mess easier. Victoria (tk) 23:19, 5 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you all! If I need help I will be sure to ask. Thanks Sadads for the link. Awest-ENG235 (talk) 21:49, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this page was indeed in poor shape, but it is gradually improving. Wharton deserves better. The article in its original form shows that entries for English wikipedia MUST be written only by those whose first language is English. I am a copy editor and I recognize that most of the problems here are second language errors. Regardless of the good intentions of the original writer, English is an easy language to learn and to speak at a low level, but proper, academic level written English is extremely difficult to master, and this mastery is seldom if ever achieved by a native speaker of another language. (In this case, the original author was undoubtedly working from French.)SamJohn2013 (talk) 21:39, 11 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My real question is, why was this article ever allowed to see print in the first place? Are Wikipedia standards so low as to allow such an article to be published without review? The work being done here is far beyond copy editing, it is a remedial course in basic writing skills, which should have been done in a school or a sandbox, not here in the published text of an important literary biography. SamJohn2013 (talk) 07:07, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Glad you could swoop in, Angel of Mercy. The talk page should be reserved for ideas on how to make the article better, not bitching about how shitty you think the article is in its present state; that's just not helpful. All best, but your comments make you sound like you're "too good" to be doing this. Maybe just make edits and leave the high-mindedness at home? Icarus of old (talk) 15:40, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, please excuse me. Having basic standards for written English and caring about whether Wikipedia should strive to maintain them is now considered "high-minded"? I assure you that my only intention has been to improve this article, to pass on my methods to others who may also care, and to stand up for one one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. SamJohn2013 (talk) 21:22, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. You can do that and not write snobby talk page comments or edit summaries though. All best. Icarus of old (talk) 22:52, 15 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Prizes in the lead[edit]

Pinging @SamJohn2013:, @Fronticla:, @Sagaciousphil:, @Neonorange:

It looks as though there's been a bit of to-and-fro recently on which awards and nominations should be included in the lead paragraph of the article. In the interests of avoiding a slow edit war, I'm opening this up for discussion so that a solution which satisfies everyone can be reached.

The dispute seems to be over the phrase "Pulitzer Prize-winning author". The current version of the article doesn't mention her Pulitzer in the lead at all, preferring to cover her Nobel nominations. It seems strange not to mention the Pulitzer in the lead, since being the first women to win it is a pretty major achievement. However, I also take the point that any "is an award-winning novelist/actor/musician/investment banker/snowmobile salesman" isn't great language for the first sentence of an article, so I propose a compromise, below (addition in italics):

Edith Wharton (/ˈiːdɪθ ˈwɔːrtən/; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930, and in 1921 became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight. She was well acquainted with many of her era's other literary and public figures, including Theodore Roosevelt.

Totally open to changes in wording etc. but how do people feel about adding this extra line to ensure that the Pulitzer gets a mention without having to append the rather unattractive "award-winning" statement? Yunshui 雲水 10:23, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would be an excellent solution, Yunshui, as I do feel the Pulitzer achievement deserves mention in the lead. A further tweak I'd suggest would be to re-jig it slightly so it was "... ... 1928 and 1930, and became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1921." so there isn't a ream of years all beside each other. Alternatively - and something along the following lines would be my preferred option as firstly, it is chronological and secondly, she actually won the Pulitzer whereas the Nobel Prize was a nomination: "In 1921 she became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930." The other thing that needs to be done (IMO) is for the information about the Nobel Prize to be included in the main body of the article text so that the ref can be removed from the lead. SagaciousPhil - Chat 12:06, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yunshui, thanks for opening this talk page discussion. I agree with your reasoning, and like the direction of your suggested change. The change of emphasis suggested by Sagaciousphil is good also. Put me down for the combination of the two changes. — Neonorange (Phil) 16:17, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]


It is a difficult problem, but my take is as follows: Awards are, regardless of their importance, a poor measure of a person's worth. With Wharton though, the Pulitzer Prize takes on added significance because it was historic, in that it was indicative of a change in the literary world's recognition of woman writers. So the Pulitzer is in, the Nobel nomination is out, as largely symbolic. It is already mentioned at another point in the text.

My real editorial concern is with the introduction overall. Its coherency is distracted by too many adjectives in the description. I propose the following recast:

Edith Wharton (...) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton combined an insiders' view of American aristocracy with a powerful prose style. Her insightful novels and short stories realistically portrayed the lives and morals of the late nineteenth century, an era of decline and faded wealth. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921, and was the first woman to receive this honor. Wharton was acquainted with many of the well-known people of her day, both in America and in Europe, including President Theodore Roosevelt. SamJohn2013 (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I like the adjectival strimming you've done there (I'd consider perhaps removing "insightful" as well, actually). I'm sort of on the fence about the Nobel nominations; while I totally agree that a prize won should take precedence over a prize someone didn't win, even being on the nominations list for a Nobel is quite an achievement. So... I'd be happy either way on that. But definitely a good call on the descriptions of her sparkling wit, etc. Yunshui 雲水 19:42, 19 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Lacking further comment form others, I've implemented SamJohn2013's version of the text, and have added a mention of the Nobel nominations later in the article body. Yunshui 雲水 10:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When was the last assessment made to this article?[edit]

This article seems much stronger than C-class, it's seen a great deal of improvement in the past months. I can't tell when the last assessments were made, and would venture this is could use another round of review, anyone else? Shameran81 (talk) 18:35, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion[edit]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 18:37, 1 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA Status[edit]

I'm working as part of the WP:WikiProject Women/Women in Green to see if we can make improvements to move Edith Wharton up to GA status. Auldhouse (talk) 18:03, 19 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of sources repeated, so I'll be switching the references to Harvard Ref. Auldhouse (talk) 17:49, 21 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Playwright[edit]

I have been listening to Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 on October 4 2018 on Edith Wharton. One of the speakers on said that Edith Wharton had written plays before writing her first novel, so should the opening of this article add that she was a playwright? Vorbee (talk) 08:15, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct Vorbee. I'm looking at a list of her works and she wrote three. I'll add that. Auldhouse (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is a Wharton play on BBC Radio 3 at the moment. The Shadow of a Doubt. According to the introduction, someone found references to it in the New York Times from 1901 and was able to track down the manuscript - complete. It was going into production in 1901 but abandoned, possibly because of its controversial subject matter. This is its first production
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000xfl

2A00:23C6:1683:4D01:8025:4373:D2C0:7014 (talk) 19:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Art history?[edit]

I can't see how she qualifies for the list of 'Women in the Art History field'. Valetude (talk) 00:34, 27 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Land's End[edit]

There appears to be a conflict about when Wharton bought the property named "Land's End".

In the first paragraph under '1880s-1900s' it reads "In 1893, they bought a house named Land's End, on the other side of Newport, for $80,000..."

But in the third paragraph under 'Travels and Life Abroad' it says "In 1897, Edith Wharton purchased Land's End in Newport, Rhode Island[...]Wharton agreed to pay $80,000 for the property, and spent thousands more to alter the home's facade..." 72.195.208.146 (talk) 22:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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