Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was one of America's greatest writers. The author of more than forty books, including The Age of Innocence, Wharton was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, and full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Wharton was the principal designer of her 1902 country home The Mount in Lenox, Mass. The Mount's elegant house and gardens reflect the neoclassical design principles that she espoused in her works The Decoration of Houses and Italian Villas and Their Gardens.