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| Edith when young painted by British-born artist Edward Harrison May |
From 1866 to 1872, the Jones family visited Europe, taking in France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. During her travels, the young Edith became fluent in French, German, and Italian. At the age of nine, she contracted typhoid fever, which nearly killed her, while the family were at a spa in the Black Forest. After their return to America, the family divided their time between New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. Educated privately by tutors and governesses, Edith began writing at an early age.
In 1878 Edith’s father arranged for a collection of two dozen of Edith’s own poems and five translations to be published. Edith had a poem published in the “New York World” in 1879, using a pen-name; in1880, she had five poems published anonymously in “Atlantic Monthly” and her poem "The Last Giustiniani" was published in “Scribner's Magazine” in October 1889.
Edith married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton on 29th April 1885. However, when the marriage deteriorated, she decided to move permanently to France and purchased an apartment in Paris. She worked tirelessly throughout the First World War to support the French war effort, founding a workroom for unemployed women, where they sewed and were fed and paid one franc a day. When the Germans invaded Belgium and Paris saw the arrival of Belgian refugees, Edith helped to set up the American Hostels for Refugees, which managed to get them shelter, meals, and clothes. She then set up an employment agency to help them find work, collecting over $100,000 for the cause. In early 1915 Edith set up the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, which helped around 900 Belgian refugees.
Aided by her influential connections in the French government, Edith and her friend Walter Berry (who at that time was President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris), were among the few foreigners in France allowed to travel to the front lines. They made five journeys between February and August 1915, which Wharton described in a series of articles that were first published in “Scribner's Magazine” and later as a book entitled “Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort”, which became a success in America. Travelling by car, Wharton and Berry drove through the war zone, viewing one decimated French village after another. She visited the trenches, and was within earshot of artillery fire.
After the war, Edith moved to Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt and purchased an 18th-century house on seven acres of land which she called “Pavillon Colombe”, where she lived for the remainder of her life, when she was not wintering in Hyères on the French Riviera. Edith was awarded the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921, for her delightful book “The Age of Innocence”, which was published in 1920.
Edith died of a stroke on 11th August 1937, leaving us a huge legacy of her writing. This book edited by Edith Wharton and sold in aid of Belgian refugees during the First World War is particularly interesting: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57584/57584-h/57584-h.htm
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| From "Twelbe Poems", 1926 |
“Belgium” a poem by Edith Wharton
La Belgique ne regrette rien
Not with her ruined silver spires,
Not with her cities shamed and rent,
Perish the imperishable fires
That shape the homestead from the tent.
Wherever men are staunch and free,
There shall she keep her fearless state,
And homeless, to great nations be
The home of all that makes them great
http://www.poetryatlas.com/poetry/poem/1401/belgium.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59437/59437-h/59437-h.htm
See also Campbell, Donna M. "Works by Edith Wharton". Washington State University.
Note: Edward Harrison May. During the Franco-Prussian War, May served as a captain in the "American Ambulance" – a temporary military hospital staffed by volunteers from the American colony in Paris. He received a medal for his services during the war.
