Books by Edith Wharton
The Greater Inclination, 1899.
The Touchstone, 1900.
Crucial Instances, 1901.
The Valley of Decision, 1902.
Sanctuary, 1903.
The Descent of Man, and Other Stories, 1904.
Italian Villas and Their Gardens, 1904.
Italian Backgrounds, 1905.
The House of Mirth, 1905.
Madame de Treymes, 1907.
The Fruit of the Tree, 1907.
The Hermit and the Wild Woman, 1908.
A Motor-Flight Through France, 1908.
Artemis to Actæon and Other Verse, 1909.
Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910.
The Reef, 1912.
The Custom of the Country, 1913.
The Book of the Homeless, 1915.
Fighting France, 1915.
Ethan Frome.
The Decoration of Houses.
The Joy of Living.
Xingu and Other Stories.
Summer, 1917.
The Marne, 1918.
French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919.
The Age of Innocence, 1920.
The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922.
The Reef, Summer, The Marne, French Ways and Their Meaning, The Age of Innocence, and The Glimpses of the Moon were published by D. Appleton & Company, New York; Mrs. Wharton’s other books were published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.
CHAPTER II
ALICE BROWN
FROM New Hampshire Alice Brown responded, July 29, 1918, to a request for something from herself about herself with a letter as follows:
“I have been too busy in legitimate ways—gardening, cooking, cursing the Hun—to write you a human document. But these are some of the dark facts. I was born in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, about six miles inland from the sea, near enough to get a tang of salt and a ‘sea turn’ of walking— “I went to the little district school until I was perhaps fourteen and then went to the ‘Robinson Female Seminary,’ Exeter, walking back and forth every day except in the winter months, and there I was graduated—after which I taught several years, in the country and in Boston, hating it more and more every minute, and then threw over my certainty to write. “I did a little work on the Christian Register and then went to the Youth’s Companion, where, for years, I ground out stuff from the latest books and magazines. “And that’s really all! I own a farm here at Hill, which I don’t carry on—sell the grass standing and the apples on the trees. I love gardens and houses. I wish I could go round planning the resurrection of old houses and pass them over to somebody else and plan more. “And that’s all! Now I ask you if any newspaper gent, even with a genius for embroidery, could make anything of that? ‘Story? God bless you, sir, I’ve none to tell!’