Today, Edith Wharton's novels THE HOUSE OF MIRTH and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE are considered classics, and few young people finish high school without having read her short, tragic novel ETHAN FROME. In her own time, she was not only a best-selling novelist and recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for literature; she was also presented with France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, for her philanthropic work during World War I. Born Edith Jones, into the wealthy and socially prominent Jones family that the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" initially referred to, Edith unnerved her socialite mother by being different, intellectual, and odd. In this personal and entertaining biography, author Wooldridge shows how Edith escaped her patrician background and the stereotyped image of women to become a full-time writer, interrupting her writing career only to throw herself into volunteer work and philanthropy during World War I. She lived in New York and Paris, traveled in well-known literary cicles (Henry James and Bernard Berenson were among her confidants), and surrounded herself with an adoring group of friends, primarily men. Her unhappy marriage to a mentally unstable man ended in divorce, and recently her love affair with one of "her bachelors" has come to light. Filled with witty quotes and lively anecdotes, THE BRAVE ESCAPE OF EDITH WHARTON is an intriguing account of an exotic and unconventional life.