Edith Wharton's Bible

Abstract:Before Edith Wharton's library became available at The Mount, scholars relied on the well-known bookseller notation that her Bible contained "passages marked by Wharton, especially in Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Isaiah." This article makes available a careful investigation of Wharton's annotations in her Bible, revealing not only the specifics of the passages Wharton marked, but also her focus on other sections of the Bible as well, including the books of Job, Joel, Micah, and the Pauline Epistles in the New Testament. Taken as a whole, Wharton's considerable marginalia illuminates theological issues of interest to her, and one in particular—the contemplation of wisdom—is a recurrent theme. For all the many enigmas it presents, and future threads to follow, Edith Wharton's Bible is an intriguing artifact of an interrogation into the mystery of divine and human wisdom.