Tag: Edith Wharton

There are many reasons Edith Wharton is an inspiration to me, not the least of which is the fact she flourished as a writer and she made Paris her home town.

I have written a number of diary entries about the novelist, one of which was a literary adventure to the street Edith Wharton called home in the City of Light, rue de Varenne. Wharton described Paris as being in her blood and I understand the sentiment on a cellular level. Wandering the city’s streets is quite different than scurrying around New York City. This has to do with the scale of the building, the gracefulness of the neoclassical architecture, the warmth of the stone, the slenderness of the streets that pour into boulevards not so grand as to be intimidating to the human form.

Layers peel away to reveal literary history. They become whorls circling back in time through every era—men and women of letters ascending in their times as resolutely as the mansard roofs that loom above the Seine. Rue de Varenne also holds the former chateau of Marguerite de Valois, which now houses the Italian Embassy. Though centuries apart in the eras they inhabited, the addresses these two powerful women called home are across the street from each other.

Each had equally doomed stories where love was concerned, though Margot Valois’s was much more tempestuous than Wharton’s. As I stood on the sidewalk pivoting from one to the other, I wondered if Wharton was ever inspired to delve into the story of Catherine de’ Medici’s daughter given she would have passed by the monarch’s compound untold number of times. If you enjoy dipping back in time like I do, I’d be thrilled if you’d take the time to read some of my other posts on this famous woman writer.