Edith Wharton's 
Published Works

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Published works category
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Before 1900

1877

Fast and Loose
The first novel Wharton wrote was the last to be published. Written from 1876-1877 under the penname David Oliveri between the ages of 14 and 15, it was not published until 1977, forty years after her death.
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1878

Verses
Privately printed in Newport by one of her parents (in her memoir, Wharton credited her mother; elsewhere, her father), Verses contains 24 poems by Wharton
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1897

The Decoration of Houses
Wharton’s first major published work was a work of non-fiction, co-authored with Ogden Codman
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1898

Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian
Edith Wharton translated three of the five stories in this collection: “A Great Day” and “College Friends” by Edmondo de Amicis
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1899

The Greater Inclination
Edith Wharton’s first published short story was “Mrs. Manstey’s View,” published in Scribner’s Magazine
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1900 - 1920

1900

The Touchstone
Wharton’s first novella (longer than a short story, shorter than a novel), tells of the young lover of a recently deceased, famous female author.
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1901

Crucial Instances
Originally titled The Line of Least Resistance after the story she thought was her best, the title was changed and the story removed after a neighbor in Lenox
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1902

The Valley of Decision
A historical novel set in the 18th century, The Valley of Decision centers on a young Italian nobleman who attempts to reform his dukedom according to the principles of the Enlightenment
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1902

The Joy of Living
Mrs. Patrick Campbell, an English actress who George Bernard Shaw wrote Pygmalion for, requested that Wharton translate this play by the German playwright Hermann Sudermann.
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1903

Sanctuary
Sanctuary tells the story Kate Peyton, who marries a charming, but morally weak, man in hopes that she can provide their child with the moral strength the father lacks.
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1904

The Descent of Man
The title comes from a work of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution greatly shaped Wharton’s world-view.
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1904

Italian Villas and Their Gardens
Wharton wanted to write a scholarly work on Italian villas and their gardens, her publisher wanted a more popular work.
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1905

Italian Backgrounds
One of her several books on Italy, Italian Backgrounds documents several trips she took throughout Italy over more than a decade.
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1905

The House of Mirth
The book that made Wharton’s reputation, The House of Mirth features Lily Bart, a beautiful woman of elite New York society.
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1907

Madame de Treymes
Fanny de Malrive, an American unhappily married into an aristocratic French family, wants a divorce so that she can marry John Durham, who she knew from New York.
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1907

The Fruit of the Tree
Wharton followed her hugely successful novel of elite New York City society, The House of Mirth, with this novel, which largely takes place in a Hudson Valley mill town.
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1908

The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories
The title story takes place in medieval Italy and tells of a hermit whose life is disrupted by a woman who has fled a convent.
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1908

A Motor-Flight through France
The motor-car has restored the romance of travel” is how Wharton begins; the rest of the book backs up her claim.
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1909

Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse
Her second collection of poetry contains some of her best poetry, including “Vesalius in Zante,” a historical poem about a 16th-century physician
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1910

Tales of Men and Ghosts
Tales of Men and Ghosts contains 10 short stories written by Wharton written between 1908 and 1910.
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1911

Ethan Frome
In Wharton’s classic tale of winter New England, an engineer brought in to work at a nearby power-house is fascinated
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1912

The Reef
Anna Leath, the widow of the wealthy but cold Frasier Leath, rekindles her relationship with George Darrow, who wooed her as a youth.
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1913

The Custom of the Country
Undine Spragg—how can you?” asks the heroine’s mother in the opening to The Custom of the Country.
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1915

Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort
Fighting France begins with the outbreak of World War I and describes how mobilization transformed France and the French.
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1916

The Book of the Homeless
Edith Wharton drew upon her wide circle of acquaintances to produce this collection of pieces to raise money for her wartime charities.
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1916

Xingu and Other Stories
The opening title story, about a woman’s book club welcoming Osric Dane to discuss her latest novel, The Wings of Death
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1917

Summer
Wharton called Summer her “hot Ethan” probably as much for its setting—summertime in a small New England town
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1918

The Marne
The main character of The Marne is a teenage American boy living in Paris. Too young to enlist for the First Battle of the Marne
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1919

French Ways and Their Meaning
The United States Navy selected this book, which was written to explain France to American servicemen, for their ship libraries.
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1920 - 1940

1920

In Morocco
In September and October 1917, in the middle of World War I, Edith Wharton travelled to Morocco at the invitation of the Resident-General Lyautey.
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1920

The Age of Innocence
Newland Archer, a wealthy young man in 1870s New York City, is engaged to the beautiful, seemingly conventional May Welland.
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1922

The Glimpses of the Moon
Nick and Susy Lansing are newly wed, but perhaps not for long. They married because they realized they could travel Europe
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1923

A Son at the Front
The son at the front of the title is George, son of impoverished painter John Campton and stepson of the wealthy banker Anderson Brant.
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1924

Old New York
The four novellas that make up Old New York each take place in a different decade of the nineteenth century.
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1925

The Mother’s Recompense
Kate Clephane, who twenty years earlier left her husband and abandoned her daughter, returns to America from Europe for her daughter’s wedding
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1925

The Writing of Fiction
Although Wharton wrote many articles on writing and writers, this is her only book on the subject.
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1926

Here and Beyond
Wharton’s first collection of short stories after World War I contains no stories directly about the war.
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1926

Twelve Poems
Only 130 copies of these 12 poems were published. Several of the poems, such as “The Tryst,” address the death and destruction wrought by World War I.
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1927

Twilight Sleep
Every minute of Pauline Manafort’s day is planned out in advance, ensuring maximum efficiency.
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1928

The Children
Martin Boyne, a forty-six-year-old American engineer who has spent most of his adult working abroad
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1929

Hudson River Bracketed
Hudson River Bracketed is the first of two novels about Vance Weston, an aspiring writer from the West who visits the Hudson Valley
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1930

Certain People
Wharton’s eighth collection contains six stories. “After Holbein” is a darkly comic tale of a society gentleman who mistakenly visits an old friend for dinner.
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1932

The Gods Arrive
The Gods Arrive is only sequel Wharton wrote, though she considered writing sequels to The Valley of Decision and The Age of Innocence.
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1933

Human Nature
Wharton dedicated this book to her friend Bernard Berenson, an American art historian and collector who lived in Italy.
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1934

A Backward Glance
Wharton’s memoir is unconventional. In many ways, it is less about her and more about the people
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1936

The World Over
The World Over contains two of her most famous stories, “Pomegranate Seed” and “Roman Fever.”
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1937

Ghosts
Do you believe in ghosts?’ is the pointless question often addressed by those who are incapable of feeling ghostly influences to—I will not say the ghost-seer
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1938

The Buccaneers
I am writing a new novel of the same period as The Age of Innocence…This one, however, is considerably less innocent,” is how Wharton described The Buccaneers to a friend.
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1939

Eternal Passion in English Poetry
Every anthology is always some one person’s anthology,” wrote Wharton somewhat misleadingly in her introduction to this collection of English language
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1907

The Fruit of the Tree

Wharton followed her hugely successful novel of elite New York City society, The House of Mirth, with this novel, which largely takes place in a Hudson Valley mill town. For research, she toured a cotton mill in Adams, MA, about 25 miles north of The Mount in the Berkshires.

The novel follows the love triangle of Justine Brent, a nurse, John Amherst, the assistant manager of the mill, and Bessy Westmore, the newly widowed mill owner. Covering topics ranging from workers’ rights to honesty between spouses, it is sometimes criticized for a lack of unity. Wharton objected, writing, “one knows one’s weak points so well, that it’s rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them & invent others that (one is fairly sure) don’t exist.”

Published in October 1907