Fighting France

Edith Wharton, the author of classic novels including The Age of Innocence, was an American living in Paris when war broke out in 1914.

In the months that followed, she was one of the few foreigners allowed to travel to the front lines.

She wrote a series of articles documenting her travels, always driven to investigate as much as possible, whether sordid hospitals barely removed from the fighting or the singular experience of standing on the front line itself. The French soldiers and civilians she met along the way were a constant source of admiration for Edith.

These beautifully-written reports are a moving tribute both to the nation she loved so well and to her own status as one of the century’s greatest writers.