Edith Newbold Jones was born in New York on January 24th, 1862 to wealthy parents. This background of privilege would allow her to concentrate, without distraction, on her literary career which would culminate in her becoming the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 with ‘The Age of Innocence’At age 25 she married Edward Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years her senior and together they travelled extensively. However, by the turn of the century her husband’s acute depression necessitated that their travels cease, and they retired to The Mount, their estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which had been designed by Edith. By 1908 his state was said to be incurable and, prior to divorcing him in 1913, she began an affair, in 1908, with Morton Fullerton, a Times journalist, who was her intellectual equal and pushed her to create her literary legacy for which she is so well famed. As well as such other classics as ‘Ethan Frome’ and ‘The House of Mirth’, she also wrote many short stories and poetry.Edith Wharton died of a stroke August 11th, 1937 at Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt in Northern France.