Edith Wharton was born in New York City in 1862 and grew up in a rich, upper-class family. Her world had strict rules, especially for women. But Edith didn’t let those rules stop her—she followed her interests even when they went against what society expected.
She loved learning and, during her childhood in Europe, became fluent in French, German, and Italian. Still, it was writing and storytelling that truly excited her. Even as a child, she was creating stories and poems.
She worked hard to get better at writing. By the age of fifteen, she had written a 30,000-word novella. That same year, she sold her first poem. When she was eighteen, several of her poems were published in magazines—but under a fake name, because writing wasn’t seen as proper for a woman from her background.
Writing became her lifelong passion. Edith wrote forty-eight books and over eighty-five short stories. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature for her novel The Age of Innocence.
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