Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. The Age of Innocence (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making her the first woman to win the award. She spoke fluent French as well as several other languages, and many of her books were published in both French and English.

Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In addition to The Age of Innocence, her other well-known works include The House of Mirth, the novella Ethan Frome, and several notable ghost stories.

She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.