Crucial Instances #76382

American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton was friend and confidante to many gifted intellectuals of her time: Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau and André Gide were all guests of hers at one time or another. Bernard Berenson and Kenneth Clark were valued friends as well. Her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald is described by the editors of her letters as "one of the better-known failed encounters in the American literary annals". The Age of Innocence (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, giving Wharton the honor of being the first woman to win the award.