English III Honors - Edith Wharton

Tori Moody

English III Honors

Summer reading project

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was born on January 24, 1862, in New York City to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones. Edith had two older brothers by the names of Frederic Rhinelander Jones who went by “Freddie”, and Henry Edward Jones who went by harry, they were both much older than her. Both of her brothers went to boarding school and were hardly home so she was basically raised as an only child in a mansion on Twenty-third Street in New York City. Growing up Edith was surrounded with people fond about their manners, and guidelines on do’s and donts.

Edith never went to school she was homeschooled taught by her governess and tutors. She spoke fluently in French, Italian, and German. Edith was fascinated with stories that were in the books she read and began creating her own when she was a child. Her parents did not like her writing until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said that several of her poems should be published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine. Her parents then noticed her poems and kept them in an album that was privately published.

When Edith was seventeen she was very focused on her books. She spent her free time studying, reading, and writing. Of course many other people thought she was weird because not everyone enjoyed doing that like she did. Her parents were worried that she would end up alone and an outcast so she began to socialize. Even though she was very shy she managed to become engaged in 1882 to Harry Stevens who was very popular in New York society. Sadly one month later the engagement was off because of her mother always interfering.

On April 29, 1885, Edith married Edward R. "Teddy" Wharton who was a friend of her