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The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton
The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton: A Biography | Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge
2 posts | 5 read | 2 to read
This book examines the life and career of the American author, Edith Wharton.
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Graywacke
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A young adult biography that serves as an excellent introduction into who Wharton was. It‘s a library book that I picked up to scan through and found myself wanting to keep reading. I liked that it's a nice efficient take that covers the essentials of Wharton's very complicated life. It explained a lot of stuff I was only loosely aware of or didn't know at all. #whartonbuddyread

Graywacke Things I found interesting:

- Wharton met her husband when she and her family were in a rush to get her married before their own financial problems became apparent. But she was always much wealthier than her husband.

- Wharton's marriage was happy until he started having mental health issues that were inherited, and neither understood nor treatable. The book suggests he had later-stage bipolarism.
1mo
Graywacke - Wharton surrounded herself with bachelors. She avoided married men to keep from jealousies and scandals, even if these relationships were not romantic but friendships.

- Her closest relationship was with Walter Berry, an American diplomat who she once expected to ask for marriage, but he didn't. Unmarried his whole life, he read every one of works before they were sent to publishers and was with her during most of her difficult times.
1mo
Graywacke - I knew about Wharton's extra-marital affair and how it was only found out years after her death. What I didn't know was that she left a love book about this affair with her papers, written to "you". So for years there was a mystery about who this lover might be. (Until his own letters were found in the 1960's)

- She needed the money from her book sales, and she made a lot from her books.
1mo
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Graywacke - she hated James Joyces's and Virginia Woolf‘s stream of consciousness writing #, considering it a bunch of novel elements that weren‘t actually put together as a novel (and she thought Ulysses was vulgar with too much low-level humor) 1mo
CarolynM How interesting! Thanks for sharing. 1mo
Graywacke @CarolynM you‘re welcome. Anything surprise you? 🙂 1mo
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Leftcoastzen Interesting! 2mo
Graywacke @Leftcoastzen i really love that we have this sketch. 🙂 1mo
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