Edith Wharton's Lenox

by Cornelia Brooke Gilder

An insider's glimpse of the suprirsing, scandalous time famed novelist Edith Wharton called Lenox home. In 1900, Edith Wharton burst into the settled summer colony of Lenox. An aspiring novelist in her thirties, she was already a ferocious aesthete and intellect. She and her husband, Teddy, planned a defiantly classical villa, and she became a bestselling author with The House of Mirth in 1905. As a hostess, designer, gardener and writer, Wharton set high standards that delighted many, including Ambassador Joseph Choate and sculptor Daniel Chester French. But her perceptive and sometimes indiscreet pen also alienated potent figures like Emily Vanderbilt Sloane and Georgiana Welles Sargent. Author Cornelia Brooke Gilder gives an insider's glimpse of the community's reaction to this disruptive star during her tumultuous Lenox decade.

224 pages, Paperback

Published July 3, 2017

Reviews

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barely 2.5

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating background in Wharton's Berkshires home environment. Some of the events wound their way into her books.