(c) 2014 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Edward Wharton

Brookline, 1850 - 1928, New York City

BiographyOn April 29, 1885,[27] at the age of 23, Wharton married Edward Robbins (Teddy) Wharton, who was 12 years her senior, at the Trinity Chapel Complex in Manhattan.[28][29] From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of the same social class and shared her love of travel. The Whartons set up house at Pencraig Cottage in Newport.[30] In 1893, they bought a house named Land's End, on the other side of Newport, for $80,000, and moved into it.[30] Wharton decorated Land's End with the help of designer Ogden Codman. In 1897, the Whartons purchased their New York home, 884 Park Avenue.[31] Between 1886 and 1897, they traveled overseas in the period from February to June – mostly visiting Italy but also Paris and England.[31] From her marriage onwards, three interests came to dominate Wharton's life: American houses, writing, and Italy.[30]

From the late 1880s until 1902, Teddy Wharton suffered from chronic depression. The couple then ceased their extensive travel.[32] At that time, his depression became more debilitating, after which they lived almost exclusively at their estate The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. During those same years, Wharton herself was said to suffer from asthma and periods of depression.[33]

In 1908, Teddy Wharton's mental condition was determined to be incurable. In that year, Wharton began an affair with Morton Fullerton, an author, and foreign correspondent for The Times of London, in whom she found an intellectual partner.[34] She divorced Edward Wharton in 1913, after 28 years of marriage.[32] Around the same time, she was beset with harsh literary criticism from the naturalist school of writers.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Wharton; accessed 2/2/2024 NW

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Last Updated5/8/24

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