Ruling Passions
"My ruling passions: Justice-Order-Dogs-Books-Flowers-Architecture-Travel-A good joke-& perhaps that should have come first-" ~Edith Wharton
Edith Newbold Jones was born on January 24, 1862 in New York City. Her parents, George and Lucretia Jones, descended from aristocracy spanning 3 centuries (including the patroon Rensselaers), and her family is said to be the inspiration of the aphorism "keeping up with the Joneses". Yet, for Edith, the wealth and privilege she was born into could not dispel a loneliness and isolation that plagued her from childhood through adulthood, impelling her to find solace in writing; her earliest compositions were written around 11 or 12 years old, but it took until middle age for Edith to find critical and popular success as a novelist with the publication of "House of Mirth", in 1905. (Image: Edith Wharton as a child, from a photo in her papers at Beinecke. Image © Saxon Henry.)
Edith Jones married Edward T. (Teddy) Wharton in 1885, a wealthy Philadelphia businessman who descended from a prominent Bostonian line. She was bound by a strict Victorian code to be a dutiful wife and social maven as accorded by her wealth and position. Around the time of their marriage Teddy began to exhibit signs of mental illness that over the years would exacerbate, causing them to abandon their travel abroad and live, almost exclusively, at the country cottage they built in 1902, called "The Mount" in Lenox, MA. Teddy is pictured here with their beloved dogs. Both he and Edith were ardent dog lovers and dedicated a section of the Mount as a cemetery for their deceased pets, which can still be seen today. (Image: Teddy Wharton, 1898, the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University)
The Whartons lived at The Mount for just 9 years. It was during that time Edith and Teddy's already fragile marriage crumbled under the added pressure of his growing manic depression. It was, however, also, a time of great literary output, as Edith finally found recognition and produced some of her best known works including "Ethan Frome", an emotionally spare and intense novel set in rural Massachusetts. (Image: Author Edith Wharton in a promotional photograph from Little Brown Book Group, 1905, during the time she resided at the Mount. Edith Wharton Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University)
The Mount was principally designed by Edith Wharton, in collaboration with the architect, Ogden Codman, Jr., with whom she had co-authored, "The Decoration of Houses", in 1897--the first manual of its kind, it helped spawn house decorating into a profession.
Main entry to the Mount, where guests, like the writer Henry James (who was provided a permanent suite) would be received. "The Decoration of Houses" was her primary designing source, and its influence can be seen in the proportion of "order, scale, and harmony " in this facade.
Entryway to the reception hall. "The main purpose of a door is to admit, its secondary purpose is to exclude".~Edith Wharton, "The Decoration of Houses".
Staircase leading from the reception hall up to the main living space. Note the leopard print carpeting that reflects Edith's adventurous spirit.
The painted panels that adorn the staircase walls are inspired by 17th century French murals. Wharton spent much of her childhood in Europe, particularly France, and when she returned to the US as a young adult, she found it to be ugly by comparison.
The Gallery is a symmetrical barrel-shaped central artery from which all of the public rooms are accessible. The interplay of the reflected light from the windows upon the opposite arched mirror provides the illusion of a grander space.
Looking down upon the main entrance courtyard from the Gallery.
Edith's library contains her original book collection and writing desk.
Detail of her personal book collection.
Detail of writing desk, where Edith would conduct her business correspondence. She didn't use this desk to write her novels, instead, she wrote in bed, throwing the handwritten manuscript pages on the floor for her personal assistant to retrieve.
Edith's bed with family portraits (father, center, flanked by her 2 brothers). Edith was not close to her mother, who was cold, critical (especially of her writing) and remote. Her father, on the other hand, was kind and encouraging to Edith, and when she was a teenager, he even made arrangements for a book of her poetry to be published. From this bed, she composed 13 novels during the 9 years she resided at the Mount.
Detail of a corner of Edith's bedroom featuring a settee and dressing screen.
Dressing table with triple mirror.
Looking out from Edith's bedroom with a view of an inlet from Laurel Lake.
The Boudoir, where Edith received close friends and family—including men, for tea and casual conversation, was an informal meeting space compared to the Drawing Room, which had its social conventions and formal etiquette.
Everyday, fresh flowers were placed throughout the house. Here, at her writing table, Edith would compose her social correspondence, an important means to staying connected to friends and loved ones, both near and far.
Boudoir (detail).
Detail of marble fireplace in Edith's boudoir.
Edith's bathroom, which was flanked by both her bedroom and boudoir.
A state-of-the-art stove. The Kitchen, situated on the ground level within the domestic realm of the house, was a room the Whartons hardly ever visited but greatly enjoyed the fruits thereof.
Meals were conveyed by dumb waiter up to the main floor Butler's Pantry before being served to guests in the Dining Room. Detail of the Butler's Pantry, where the food was plated before being presented in the Dining Room.
The Dining Room, set for an afternoon luncheon, was the location of sparkling conversation. Edith preferred to dine "in the round", hence the shape of the table--highly unusual by society dining standards, at the time. “If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”~E. Wharton
The Drawing Room was the hub of entertainment outside of the Dining Room. In here there would be literary conversation, popular music, and contemporary parlor games. Teddy disliked Edith's friends, regarding them as self-centered. Ultimately, feeling inferior, he wanted nothing to do with them and preferred to go outside to play ball with the neighborhood children.
View from the Terrace looking north. In addition to designing the Mount, Edith, an authority on European landscape architecture, also, designed the gardens.
One visits the Mount as much for the landscape as the house. There are 3,000 annual and perennial plantings in this restored flower garden.
There are two butterflies in this photo...can you spot the second one?
Peering through the linden trees along the Lime Walk. These grass steps, a landscape feature rarely found in America, are edged with flowering shrubs and native Berkshire ferns once gathered by Edith Wharton.
Looking back at the house from the Lime Walk. "I like to love, but not to be loved back, that is why I like gardens so much."~E. Wharton
The Lime Walk, flanked by linden trees, connects the flower garden to the Italianate garden.
Italianate Garden.
Wharton envisioned her gardens as outdoor rooms, exterior extensions of the house.
In another Tankful Travels post ("Illustrator as Artist", 09/03/14) Wharton's words were used to capture the remoteness of the human experience conveyed in Edward Hopper's artwork (which often featured New England landscapes): "...in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes". Likewise, Hopper's "The Automat", returns the favor, powerfully illustrating that stark and singular state of being that permeates Wharton's characters and settings. At the time "The Automat" was painted, Valentine's Day, 1927, Edith was living in France as a successful expatriate author of 40 published titles, and the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize (the first woman to receive one) for "The Age of Innocence"--a story of personal desolation caused by the adherence to strict social standards of the late 19th century New York upper class society.
A display of 49 first editions by Edith Wharton In addition to the Pulitzer Prize she won for "Age of Innocence", a second Pulitzer was awarded for an adaptation of her work "The Old Maid". She was awarded the Legion of Honor, in 1916, by the French government for her relief work on behalf of the people of France during WWI. Yale University bestowed upon her an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1923, making her the first woman to receive this accolade, too. And, again, in 1926, she was the first woman allowed full membership in the Academy of Arts and Letters.
Although her time at the Mount lasted less than a decade, it heralded the end of her 28 year marriage, while her work as a novelist took root there. In many ways, Edith's life was just beginning, as that chapter came to a close. She left the United States for good, only returning from France to receive her Honorary Doctorate from Yale. She never remarried, nor did she have any children. During the Great War, instead of running away she ran to the front lines as a war correspondent, challenging America's isolationist stance prior to the US entering the conflict. In addition, she established several workshops for women throughout Paris, which provided clothes for hospitals as well as lingerie for the fashion elite. She raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for tuberculosis sufferers and refugees, while managing a rescue operation for the children of Flanders, who she felt "could not be left alone in the ruins” of their communities that had been leveled by the Germans. Her close friend, Henry James, referred to her as the "great generalissima". (Photo: courtesy of the New York Society Library)
Edith Wharton's grave at the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. By the time of her death from a stroke at the age of 75, Edith Wharton had achieved success not only as a writer, but as a humanitarian. She possessed a brilliant mind along with an altruistic heart that informed both her writing and her actions. Her wealth dulled neither, but rather invigorated and drove her beyond care of personal comfort or the formidable social standards meant to quell women. "In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways"~Edith Wharton, from her 1934 autobiography, "A Backward Glance".
Drop by for a visit at Edith Wharton's Home, The Mount
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