edHelper.com

Edith Wharton

---

Edith Wharton
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 9 to 12
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	9.9

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		gifted, lower-class, self-educated, synopsis, materialism, robbins, irony, intellectual, upper-class, prior, ethical, co-authored, insightful, doctorate, journalist, honorary
	content words:		Edith Wharton, Edith Newbold Jones, Lucretia Jones, New York, As America, Ethan Frome, Robbins Wharton, Ogden Codman, Morton Fullerton, London Times

---

Print Edith Wharton

Print Edith Wharton  (font options, pick words for additional puzzles, and more)

Quickly Print - PDF format

	Quickly Print: PDF (2 columns per page)
	Quickly Print: PDF (full page)

Quickly Print - HTML format

Quickly Print: HTML

Proofreading Activity

Print a proofreading activity

---

Feedback on Edith Wharton

Leave your feedback on Edith Wharton  (use this link if you found an error in the story)

---

Edith Wharton By Jamie Kee

---

¹     Edith Wharton, born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862, was the daughter of George and Lucretia Jones. Wharton, along with her parents and two brothers, belonged to the fashionable society of New York who lived on inherited wealth. Throughout her short stories and novels, Wharton was able to combine her own experiences with America's privileged class and her natural wit, ironic style, and ethical seriousness to create memorable literature.
 
²     At a very young age, Wharton and her family lived and traveled throughout Europe. After six years of this, the family returned to New York when Wharton was ten years old. She was a self-educated woman, having never attended school. She relied on tutoring and her father's extensive library. From a young age, Wharton was creative and intelligent. Prior to learning how to read, she made up stories. After learning how to read, she depended heavily on her father's library. As she got older, Wharton began writing fiction and poetry.
 
³     Wharton grew up during a time of great change in America. As America developed in business, foreign affairs, and the arts, a new class of wealth was created. Along with this new class came a showy display of wealth and materialism, something that clashed with the old money class that Wharton was accustomed to. Wharton not only witnessed this change, but she was able to use this rich materialistic attitude in much of her fiction. She used humor as well as empathy when describing this disappearing upper-class of New York in such works as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. However, her tone changed dramatically when she discussed lower-class rural Massachusetts in her novel Ethan Frome.
 
⁴     In 1885 at age twenty-three, Wharton married Edward "Teddy" Robbins Wharton, who was twelve years older than she. He was a kind and handsome man from the same social class, but they had little in common intellectually or artistically. Teddy did not have Wharton's creative talents.
 
⁵     Despite her creative abilities, Wharton found writing to be difficult as an adult. She did not publish her first work of fiction until she was thirty-six. She struggled between her expected position in society and her desire to be a professional writer. Wharton began her writing career with her first non-fiction book, The Decoration of Houses, co-authored with Ogden Codman. This book exhibited her talent not only as a writer but also as a landscape architect and interior designer. The Decoration of Houses was immediately successful.

Paragraphs 6 to 11:
For the complete story with questions: click here for printable

---

Weekly Reading Books

Create Weekly Reading Books Prepare for an entire week at once!

---

More Lessons

High School Reading Comprehensions and High School Reading Lessons

---

More Activities, Lesson Plans, and Worksheets

Back to School Graphic Organizers Alphabet Worksheets Sight Words Math Worksheets Mazes 50 States Monthly Themes January February March April May June July August September October November December

Fractions Place Value Time and Calendar Money Earth Day Solar System Analogies Nouns Following Directions Listening Capitalization Cursive Writing Patterns and Sequencing Dinosaurs All About Me Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Fifth Grade Sixth Grade

Multiplication Division Main Idea Cause and Effect Measurement Decimals Rounding Order of Operations Verbs Community Helpers Adjectives Plants Grammar Addition and Subtraction Contractions Bulletin Board Ideas Word Searches Crossword Puzzles Printable Puzzles Reading Comprehension Reading Skills English Language Arts

Copyright © 2011 edHelper