Edith Wharton first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature

WHARTON EDITH: (1862-1937) American Novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner, 1921. Wharton was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, 1928 & 1930. A.L.S., E. Wharton, four pages, 8vo, Lenox, Massachusetts, n.d. ('Thursday'), to Mrs. Bell, on the printed stationery of the Curtis Hotel. Wharton states that she has received a letter from her husband following his talk with Mrs. Bell '& of the more hopeful attitude of the board', adding 'I am so afraid of having shown trop de zele in my long screed to Mr. Opdycke….that I send this line to ask you all to believe that all I want is to help & not to direct this movement'. Wharton further asks her correspondent to tell Mr. Opdycke 'to disregard, in my letter, whatever is not relevant, & above all, not to bother to answer it…..Just forward this to Mr. Opdycke & ask him to regard it as a postscript'. The novelist continues 'I am always haunted by the fact that we started this campaign with so few specific cases in hand & I had simply wrote him suggesting points which might be made against the Society's general management….' and in a postscript reports 'Here is a small instance of the Soc.'s methods. A very respectable man whom Teddy has known for years, & who owns valuable shooting dogs, told me that five or six years ago he lost a very valuable Irish setter, a pedigree dog. Being convinced it had been stolen, he went, after two or three months, to the S.P.C.A., stated his case & asked if they might would look through their record of newly licensed dogs (it was just after licenses had been given out) & see if the dog could be traced. The answer was: ''Too much trouble''. He then offered to pay the expenses if they wd. employ some one to have it done, & they refused. - Result: one possible subscriber alienated'.

Wharton's correspondent may have been Edith Bell (1857-1946) wife of Leonard Opdycke Sr. (1856-1914) a New York lawyer and social philanthropist, and mother of Leonard Opdycke Jr. (1895-1977). The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was founded in New York in 1866.

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