Born into the hoi polloi of New York society in 1862, Edith Wharton married in 1885, and that marriage was a disappointment -- she may well have been born and bred to be a society wife, but she was a woman with talent, and it was a talent that would not leave her in peace. She published her first story in 1889, and numerous books in the years that followed. Among those books were The Touchstone (1900), Crucial Instances (1901), The Valley of Decision (1902), Sanctuary (1903), The House of Mirth (1905), The Fruit of the Tree (1907), Madame de Treymes (1907), Ethan Frome (1911), The Reef (1912), The Custom of the Country (1913), Summer (1917), The Marne (1918), The Age of Innocence (1920), The Glimpses of The Moon (1922), A Son At The Front (1923), False Dawn (1924), New Year's Day (1924), The Old Maid (1924) (with Zoe Akins), The Spark (1924), The Mother's Recompense (1925), Twilight Sleep (1927), The Children (1928) aka The Marriage Playground, Hudson River Bracketed (1929), Certain People (1930), The Gods Arrive (1932), and Human Nature (1933). In 1913 the Whartons divorced, and Edith took up permanent residence in France. She lived there until she passed, in 1937.