A Library to Love

Edith Wharton's library at The Mount

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There has been a lot of news about Edith Wharton lately.  Have you noticed how much attention she is getting?  There are several new books about her and a glamorous photo spread in Vogue magazine (the September issue!).  The attention is not surprising considering that this year is the 150th anniversary of her birth.  And now her home in western Massachusetts is the subject of a new book. Edith Wharton's beautiful library (above) at the Mount, the home she designed and lived in during the early part of the twentieth-century, is featured in a new book that has just been published -- "Edith Wharton at Home: Life at the Mount" by Richard Guy Wilson.

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Wharton was as passionate and knowledgeable about architecture and interior design as she was about writing novels. In fact, her first book was "The Decoration of Houses" which she wrote with the architect Ogden Codman, Jr.  It was a book that was critical of Victorian design excesses and promoted a return to classical principles like symmetry. Anyone who is a fan of Edith Wharton's fiction knows that descriptions of her characters' homes and environments are a big part of her books.  We sink contentedly into these environments as we become engrossed in her books.  I love the description of Lawrence Selden's library in "The House of Mirth" when Lily Bart makes her unwise and unchaperoned visit to the bachelor's home.  I feel as if I could walk right into that room, which is how I often feel in my favorite books by Wharton.

"He ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints.  She noticed the letters and notes heaped on the table among his gloves and sticks;  then she found herself in a small library, dark but cheerful, with its walls of books, a pleasantly faded Turkey rug, a littered desk, and, as he had foretold, a tea-tray on a low table near the window.  A breeze had sprung up, swaying inward the muslin curtains, and bringing a fresh scent of mignonette and petunias from the flower-box on the balcony."

That is the kind of library I want.  But Edith Wharton's library at the Mount is a much grander room than Lawrence Selden's cozy library in "The House of Mirth."  It is a beautiful space with bookshelves made out of oak and two doors opening up to the terrace.  And it needed to be grand for it was the room where Wharton would entertain her guests -- which included her good friend the writer Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt, the diplomat Walter Berry, writer and painter Maxfield Parrish and landscape designer Beatrix Farrand --  for drinks and conversation before and after dinner. And when you consider that it now contains Edith Wharton's personal collection of books which were returned to the Mount from Europe in 2006, it is a very special room.

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Do you enjoy visiting writers' houses?  It is one of my favorite things to do when I am traveling.  A trip to the Berkshires for me has to include a visit to Edith Wharton's home.  In fact, the first time I was there was about fifteen years ago when the house was not yet fully restored and was the home for a theatrical group that staged Henry James' novella "The Turn of the Screw."  Seeing this ghost story  performed in Wharton's home around Halloween was an amazing experience!

The best writers' houses are autobiographical, giving us insight into the person.  The Mount is such a house.  It reveals so much about Edith Wharton.    Every aspect of the estate -- including its gardens, architecture, and interior design -- reflects her spirit.  We sense her presence as we walk through the rooms.   This is where she lived, wrote, and entertained her circle of friends which included some of the most prominent writers and artists of the day.  It contains the bedroom where she wrote "The House of Mirth," writing the book in bed each morning and tossing the pages onto the floor for her assistant to pick up and type.

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The library at the Mount, as it was recently photographed for Vogue magazine

And what about Edith Wharton's recent "star" turn in Vogue magazine?  Did you see it?  Wharton and the Mount (with a great scene shot in the library) were featured in the September issue of Vogue magazine.  This gorgeous article and photo spread photographed by Annie Leibovitz and styled by Vogue's art director Grace Coddington on the grounds of the Mount has created a huge buzz.  The article (written by Colm Toibin) tells the story of Edith's love affair with Morton Fullerton, the American expatriate journalist.  Wharton's good friend Henry James was also in love with him. The photos form a gorgeous visual accompaniment illustrating the literary life and love story of Edith Wharton. Everyone who read it was thrilled that the photos featured writers, actors, and artists of today playing Edith's inner circle of friends, including writer Jeffrey Eugenides as Henry James and writer Jonathan Safran Foers as architect Ogden Codman.  One of the scenes was shot in the library (photo above) with actor Jack Huston (from HBO's "Boardwalk Empire") playing Morton Fullerton, model Natalia Vodianova as  Wharton, and Jeffrey Eugenides as Henry James.  Go here to read more.

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There is also a new novel about Edith Wharton's life written by Jennie Fields.  In "The Age of Desire" Fields tells the story of Wharton's life through two points of view:  Wharton's own and that of her literary secretary and confidante Anna Bahlmann.  The book recreates Wharton's turn of the century world which consisted of Paris, her country estate in western Massachusetts, and Henry James home in Rye, New York.  I just picked up a copy of this book and can't wait to immerse myself in Edith Wharton's world, as well as read about her love affair with Morton Fullerton and her relationship with Anna Bahlmann.  Apparently, when she was with Fullerton, Wharton revealed a side of herself -- vulnerable and passionate -- that she didn't show to most people.  Henry James, despite his conflicted feelings regarding Fullerton, encouraged her to have the affair.  The story sounds as intriguing as any of her novels.

By the way, now that we are all becoming more familiar with Edith Wharton's life through the new books and articles about her, I wonder if someone will make a movie out of it.  What do you think?  Vogue magazine may have gotten the ball rolling with its luscious reimagining of Wharton's life at the Mount.  It had the feel of a small costume drama. Hmmm...who could play Edith Wharton?  Maybe two actresses, one playing Wharton as a young woman in her twenties, and one playing her later in life, perhaps in her forties.  Rebecca Hall and Emma Thompson?   Just a thought...the casting would be so much fun!