Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Among her other well known works are The House of Mirth and the novella Ethan Frome. Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862 to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander at their brownstone at 14 West Twenty-third Street in New York City. Italian Villas and Their Gardens Fans of Edith Wharton simply must read Italian Villas and Their Gardens, which is considered the novelist's first published work. She went on a four-month tour of Italy, which is described in loving detail in Italian Villas and Their Gardens. In Morocco The great American novelist Edith Wharton (1862-1937) here gives us her colorful and textured travel memoir "In Morroco" (1920). Still a deeply energized work, Wharton imbues the reader with a sense of wonder that served as the impetus for her travels into this exotic Northern African land. Edith Wharton made her name as a novelist closely associated with the prolific Henry James. Their personal and literary kinship may be seen in much of her long and short fiction. And just as Henry James' travel novels arrest and captivate, so too does "In Morocco". This account explores the culture, history, and beauty of a Morocco of yore in an intriguing combination of realist and romantic prose. Wharton weaves together anthropology with poetry, depicting the customs and manners of this place in all its splendor. Written with the eye of a documentarian, "In Morocco" is a breath-taking read full of wanderlust.