Did Edith Wharton and Theodate Pope Riddle ever meet? Just went to Hillsdale Museum and I highly recommend the house tour!

Wharton is a literary hero of mine. In the 21st century I still continue to feel various expectations from family, community, religion and society. I can only imagine the insufferable structure and discipline and conformity she grew up in as a member of one of New York's most prominent families. That, even in that time, thousand times more confirming and constricting than now, she had the temerity to finally stand up and decide to do what her soul, mind and heart drove her to do: write. The fact that she was and is probably the most brilliant female novelist in American history, in the 19th-20th century, comes back again and again as a suprise when as you feel empathy and jealousy of the life that she made for herself. What a brave, self-confident and incredible woman. The biography was, while long, extremely well-written and even-handed. No one is perfect, and Ms. Wharton certainly doesn't belong on a pedestal, but the true brilliance and uniqueness of her nature shines through every page. I'd also suggest that you read it while reading other things - it's fine to take a break and it is, in fact, looooong, even for an ardent fan.

Very informative regarding the life of Edith Wharton, but the last two chapters appear rushed and incomplete. At 592 pages it is no wonder - Lewis simply ran out of space. I think Lewis wanted to emphasize the happier, busier times of Edith rather than the lonely end with all of her friends preceding her in death. She was an incredibly prolific author, proficient in many languages, and a member of many elite social circles. And yet Edith seemed to feel alone within a crowd full of people.

One of the most well written if not the most well written biography I've ever read. Edith Wharton, way ahead of her time, and RWB Lewis, pages upon pages of praise would not do his work justice. What an incredible experience reading this book.

Another one listed by the Guardian as in the top ten literary biographies and I agree.

I read this a few years ago as part of my thesis research, and I found the book most useful. Despite the current "hurrah!" attitude toward Hermione Lee's Wharton biography, I prefer this one - Lee has a few errors that piss me off.

This book won the Pulitzer Prize, which is interesting considering Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer. It's an informative biography that is still useful today. And avoid Lee - ugh.

This biography of Edith Wharton won the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes when it came out. And I am only on p. 31 at this moment, but I am already finding a lot of thud moments in the writing. His big interpretations seem labored, prosaic, and debatable. I am simultaneously reading Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life - an Illustrated Biography, which is only 280 pages with pictures on almost every one, yet it gives more rounding to the person Edith Wharton was than the prize-winning bio does, at least for me. I am afraid Lewis's book is going to prove very much a professor's book. For all the details I am going to learn, I get the feeling the real woman will never appear before my eyes as I read it. Which is quite a shame, because for me Wharton and Faulkner are the two great American writers none of the others can quite approach. She is certainly a favorite of mine. Will update when I finish. Hope I am wrong, as there are still 500 pages to go!

In the end, a thorough and fair accounting of her life and I upgraded my rating to three stars. Three appendices cover (a) the possibility, believed by some of her best friends, that Edith had a different father than her beloved George Frederic Jones; (b) the remarkable romantic career of her lover Morton Fullerton; and (c) the detailed outline and erotic fragment of an unusual story called "Beatrice Palmato," about an incestuous relationship, found in her papers long after Mrs. Wharton's death.

Nice balance between telling her story and critiquing her work.

Bought years ago after listening to two of her books on tape and then watching the movie adaptation of the Age of Innocence by Martin Scorsese. The two books: Ethan Fromme and The House of Mirth. Unforgetable characters in all three. Conflicted flawed and reflections of the mores of the times they lived. I anticipate reading this biography soon during my retirement.

Vivid portrait of Edith Wharton and her place in the literary world of late 19th century America. Love her writings & glad to learn everything that went into it.

It's rather dry in parts, and focuses a bit too much on her friendship with Henry James, as if what James says about anything simply must demand attention from Lewis, but certainly this book is authoritative. Dry but authoritative. Lewis's text reminds me why I would much rather be reading Wharton's fiction. Or anyone's fiction . . .

For my Huffington Post review of this book, go to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terence...