Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was a person of high literary accomplishment and the author of Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and The House of Mirth. Ethan Frome is a grim tale about the impossibility of finding love, beauty, kindness, or generosity in America, locked as it was into heartless Puritanism. Massachusetts in winter is the perfect setting for this tragic tale.
Edith Wharton, A Biography, by R.W.B. Lewis, is also well worth reading.
