Edith Wharton

Fighting France From Dunkerque to Belfort Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton, known primarily for her novels of American high society, was also a war writer. She was one of the first woman writers to be allowed to visit the war zones in France in 1915 and report back on what she saw. This resulting collection of six essays - five of which were originally published in American magazines - presents a fascinating and unique perspective on wartime France by one of America's great novelists. Written with Wharton's distinctive literary skills to advocate American intervention in the war, this little-known war text demonstrates that she was a complex and accomplished propagandist. However, these eyewitness accounts also demonstrate a troubling awareness of the human cost of war. Incorporating a wealth of previously unpublished archival material and images, this critical edition aims to bring this neglected text into the field of Wharton studies, allowing critics and enthusiasts to reevaluate her contribution as a war writer and to assess the significance of this period for her literary development. As nuanced in her observations of human behavior as she is in her vivid depictions of French landscape and architecture, Wharton fully exploited her unique position as consort to Walter Barry, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which allowed her unparalleled access to life in the trenches. Sensitive without sentimentality, and offering a valuable and extremely rare female perspective of a war dominated by the male viewpoint, this series of articles is nothing less than an inspirational testament to the strength of the human spirit at a time of the greatest adversity.