Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (New York City, January 24, 1862 – Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France, August 11, 1937) was an American writer, who was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature (1921) with her novel The Age of Innocence (1920)

She began her literary career as a writer of short stories, her first story, Dirs. Manstey's View, appeared in Scribner's Magazine in 1891. Her first long novel, The Valley of Decision, appeared in 1902. After the outbreak of World War I she edited in 1915 The Book of the Homeless, sold for the benefit of Belgian refugees; and later for services she was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour of France.

Her works include The Greater Inclination (1899); The Touchstone (1900); Crucial Instances (1901); Madame de Treymes (1907); The Fruit of the Tree (1907); The Hermit and the Wild Woman (1908); Tales of Men and Ghosts (1910); Ethan Frome (1911); The Custom of the Country (1913); The Age of Innocence (1920).