It was about Edith Wharton, but not Berkshire-centric. It was a discussion of the book “Edith Wharton in France” (Lesage, Claudine; Wissler, Susan ed., Lenox: Wharton Restoration Inc, 2018). France: the place Wharton spent the last 26 years of her life, from 1911 to 1937—longer than she spent at the Mount.
The turnout for the event was impressive. Though sold out, more queued for seats. It was a testament to the loyalty of Wharton fans and the popularity of the Mount’s executive director Susan Wissler.
Wissler took us on her journey from outsider to editor and publisher. A first draft of the manuscript was submitted, a final polished draft only a distant wish when author Lesage died. Wissler took on the now more complicated role of editor. Ultimately, Edith Wharton Restoration Inc. also assumed the role of publisher.
The text is rich in primary source material, some of it new even to Wharton scholars—for example, soon-to-be ex-husband Teddy Wharton’s importunate letters to Edith. It is the material most highly praised by scholars even as the public may prefer the smooth, rapid recitation of a compelling story.
The original 600-page manuscript, the fruit of decades of research, left Wissler feeling as one might “opening the door to the garage of a hoarder.”
Still, the detail and authenticity of daybook and diary entries and letters puts the reader in the seat beside Wharton in her motor car, at the dinner table with her clever friends and striding beside her in her amazing gardens.
Wharton, the prize-winning author, is beloved for her quick wit and ability to draw a picture of her times while drawing us in. Even when drama is occasionally buried in verbiage, the plights and triumphs of her characters engage us. The biography is something like a Wharton novel: Wharton emerges as a compelling character and the last two and a half decades of her life emerge as a compelling time, even if you must sort through the diary entries and letters for the nuggets that move the plot.
The difficult and often wrenching nature of the Wharton divorce is clear, especially when viewed through the prism of Teddy and his family’s letters. The deep and satisfying friendships Wharton nurtured, her love of houses and gardens, and her attempts at love all shine through and are burnished by first-hand accounts. One example that stands out long after the book is closed is the portrait of William Morton Fullerton.
He galvanized Wharton’s attention. Some said he awakened her sexuality—captured her heart. Friends facilitated the romance and comforted her when he would unexpectedly and inexplicably disappear. Then, at the propitious moment, one friend asked Fullerton to pen a self-portrait. The friend thinks that perhaps Fullerton is not quite a gentleman and Wharton should take care. He thinks the self-portrait will confirm or dispel the supposition and warn or comfort Wharton. Fullerton complies and the result?
He begins by calling himself “a heart eater.” He admits to “a twinge of remorse … that he had wrecked” the life of one woman. He describes another woman, who certainly could be Wharton, and proclaims he was always untrue to her because he “preserved his freedom … loved to exercise his power … and would again and again.”
It was proof the friend needed to warn Wharton. What she did with it, and when, was up to her. However poorly Wharton’s marriage and love affairs went, she was happy in the end.
She bought, sold and decorated houses as she planted gardens: both to great effect. Toward the end of her life, she wrote, “It is good to grow old and die in beauty.”
After her death, that which she worked so diligently to make beautiful was purposefully torn apart for profit and less carefully torn apart by vandals. Wissler marveled at how swiftly that which took decades to build could be destroyed.
Wissler gave examples of the challenges she faced in editing a too-long manuscript brimming with cliché and criticism. It is clear the aim was preservation—of decorum, Wharton’s reputation and the Wharton style. The vandalism of her houses and gardens in the real world would not be mirrored in the pages of the book. Laudable, and yet a wee corner of the mind yearns for a soupcon of the more colorful and admittedly more critical language.
