Edith Newbold Jones (Edith Wharton) (1862-1937) was born in New York City during the American Civil War. She enjoyed a diverse and very successful career as interior and garden designer, short story writer and celebrated novelist, and was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Wharton found inspiration for Ethan Frome's tragic denouement in an actual event in Lenox, Massachusetts, one of the victims of which she met personally.
The House of Mirth is also published in the Penguin English Library.