Edith Wharton in France [Hardcover]

From French scholar and author Claudine Lesage, comesEdith Wharton in France,an examination of Whartons years (1907-1937) in France. Lesage, with her innate knowledge of French culture, uses previously unknown or untranslated sources to provide a unique look into French society and Whartons place within it.

Edith Wharton in Francechronicles Edith Whartons dogged efforts to penetrate the Byzantine levels of French high society, her love for the French and Italian countryside, and her consuming passion for the Mediterranean garden. While Lesage is initially skeptical of Whartons ability to become French, this work ultimately portrays a woman of indomitable spirit who ultimately succeeds in fashioning a French home of her own making in her beloved adopted country.

Lesages work illuminates the intertwined characters and important relationships of Whartons life in France, many of them overlooked or minimized in earlier biographies. Prominently featured in the account are the French novelist Paul Bourget and his wife Minnie, whose meticulous diary entries over a 35-year period provide a fresh look at Whartons active social life both in Paris and on the French Riviera.

A still more intimate look into Whartons French circle is provided by her extensive correspondence with the Frenchman L?on B?lugou, a widely travelled mining engineer, writer and well-known figure in Parisian high society. Spanning more than 25 years, the letters portray a mutual intellectual kinship and devoted friendship. Other newly discovered highlights include letters presented as evidence in Whartons French divorce proceedings, a mysterious autobiographical essay written by Whartons lover, American journalist Morton Fullerton, and numerous photographs never before published.

The author of multiple works of translation, as well original French texts on Wharton and Conrad, Lesage had access to unexamined and untranslated French sources. She presents Whartons life from tló(