A Life Briefly Summarized

Edith Wharton was born as Edith Jones on January 24, 1862, in New York City to an upper-class family. In her autobiography, A Backward Glance, Edith seems to speak of nothing but the desire to learn as child. However, this was looked down upon by her family as Edith was intended to be a lady. If she was allowed to read a book from her father’s library, her parents had to approve it, which was rare according to Edith.

Growing up, her father’s library consisted only of male authors. However, she aspired to become a writer at a young age, writing short stories in secret. To try to squash her dreams young, she would play literary critic and write scathing reviews to belittle her own work. Her resilience exhausted her parents, and Edith eventually became so intelligent, despite their best efforts, that her family worried she would be unmarriageable. To avoid this, they had her coming out party at 17 years old as opposed to the traditional 18 years of age so she wouldn’t have more time to scare men off with her intellect.

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