The Valley of Decision

Edith Wharton

Edith Newbold Wharton was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of upper-class New York society to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Her other well-known works are The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories.