Edith WHARTON. When war broke out in August, 1914, Wharton was in Paris. During the
fall and winter of 1914, she organized war charities and raised money for the refugees
flooding Paris. She also created the American Hostels for Refugees. During 1915
she supervised two large refugee & relief organizations, wrote a series of articles for
Scribners about wartime Paris and the Front (which she visited five times during the year
to distribute French Red Cross supplies). She organized a third major charity to house
refugees sent to her from the Belgian government. Her charities provided housing,
employment, education, and medical services for refugees numbering in the thousands.
She also conceived and began work on a special gift book anthology, The Book of the
Homeless, featuring original contributions from major European and American authors, the proceeds of which were used to support refugee relief. The book was published in January, 1916. Much of her effort in 1916 was directed in a fight against tuberculosis, which was threatening to sweep through France in an epidemic, and which had already become rampant among the French soldiers in the trenches. She established a number of convalescent homes and demonstration sanitariums and served as a vice president on the Tuberculeux de la Guerre. With the arrival of the Americans in 1917, all her work was in danger of being swallowed up and lost in the administrative morass of the American Red Cross, and her time and energy was increasingly expended in countering the Red Cross's bureaucratic "octopus". In 1918 she received honors from the French and Belgium governments, and met with General Pershing and President Wilson's representative, Colonel House. She also began to withdraw from her many administrative positions, as her health had suffered greatly during the years of the war. She endured chronic exhaustion, heart problems, hay fever, allergies and, every fall and winter, bouts of pneumonia, bronchitis and influenza. By the end of the war her
health was permanently impaired.
The Book of the Homless (Le Livre des Sans-Foyer). New York, Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1916; Xingu and Other Stories. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916;
Summer. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1917;
The Marne. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1918;
French Ways and Their Meaning. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1919;
The Age of Innocence. 1920;
A Son at the Front. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923;
The Mother's Recompense. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925;
Price, Alan, The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Wharton and the First World War. New York, St Martin's Press, 1996.
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. Wharton, Edith, Novellas and Other Writings. NY: 1990, 1st edition, Library of
America. VG in Vg dust jacket, Maroon boards $20.00
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Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence. NY: Modern Library. VG(bookplate to
flyleaf) in VG(flap clipped) dust jacket. Green boards; #299 $20.00
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Wharton, Edith, The Buccaneers. NY: 1993, 1st(of this) edition, Viking. VG+/VG+
Grey and white boards $17.50
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Wharton, Edith, The Buccaneers. NY: 1995, 1st edition, Viking. VG+ in VG+ dust jacket, red
boards $15.00
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