(born Jan. 24, 1862, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Aug. 11, 1937, Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, near Paris, France) U.S. novelist and short-story writer. Born into upper-class society, she began writing a few years after her marriage in 1885.
She lived in France after 1908 and was divorced in 1913. Her works examine the barriers of social convention, especially in the upper class, that stand in the way of individual happiness. Her close friendship with the older novelist Henry James did much to support and shape her work. The critical and popular success of her novel The House of Mirth (1905; film, 1918, 2000; for television, 1981) established her as a leading writer. She is perhaps best known for Ethan Frome (1911), which exploits the grimmer possibilities of New England farm life. Her other books include the novels The Custom of the Country (1913), The Age of Innocence (1920, Pulitzer Prize), and The Buccaneers (1938).
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