Biography of Edith Wharton (New York, 1862 - Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt [Francia], 1937)

By Remedios Perni Llorente
Translation by Raquel Boix and Dahra Mautone

Born into a distinguished family in New York, Edith Wharton was a prolific writer and designer whose life and work remain closely related to her extensive stays and travels throughout Europe, including Spain. While Wharton is best known as a novelist and celebrated for her ironic critique of American society in works like The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920), it is also worth highlighting the artistic and personal vision that she developed as a travel writer.

Wharton visited Spain for the first time at the age of four, in 1866. In her autobiography A Backward Glance (1934) she recounts, amongst many other things, that from her travels in Spain she retains fleeting memories of bells, inns, poverty, olives and an incurable passion for the road. During her various trips through Spain, Wharton immersed herself in the cultural and architectural richness of the country, from the palaces and gardens in Granada to the vast plains of Castille. Enamored with Spanish history, architecture, monuments and culture, Wharton meticulously documented the details of each place she visited, as we can see in her letters as well as in the manuscript A Motor-Flight through Spain, and in her Spain Diary, published for the first time in 2011. Her writings reflect an immense passion for architecture and the Spanish landscape, to the extent that heritage conservation became a recurrent theme in her writings and design projects.

In many aspects, Edith Wharton was a pioneer in an era in which women faced significant societal constraints. As a traveler, explorer, intellectual, and writer, she boldly challenged established norms. Her contribution to the history of literature and her effort to elevate women’s place both in social and artistic spheres reflect her free-spirited and adventurous nature, as well as her profound connection to the places she loved, including Spain.