Edith Wharton was born in Manhattan in 1862. She wrote 15 novels, seven novellas and at least 85 short stories, drawing on her knowledge of upper-class New York society. She was also a garden and interior designer, and her first major design book, The Decoration of Houses (1897), was co-written with Ogden Codman.
Her best-known works include The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, Summer and The Age of Innocence, for which she won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, the first awarded to a woman. She was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1916 for wartime relief work, and she died in France in 1937.
Source: Wikipedia