Book overview
Edith Wharton's The Decoration of Houses (1897), co-written with the architect Ogden Codman Jr., brought transatlantic fame to a writer best known as a chronicler of Gilded Age New York. In their decorating guidebook, Wharton and Codman, who collaborated on the design of the author's Massachusetts home, The Mount, advocated for simple but classically informed choices that resonate profoundly today. The book crystallizes what Wharton found to be troubling in Americans' enthusiasm for ostentation at the turn of the twentieth century--the late Victorian equivalent of the modern "McMansion."
This annotated edition includes a comprehensive introduction that provides relevant biographical information on Wharton, as well as her literary work and how her perspectives on homeownership and d
