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The Berkshires ( /ˈbɜrkʃərz/ or /ˈbɜrkʃɪərz/), is a highland geologic region located in the western parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut.^[1]

Also referred to as the Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Mountains, and Berkshire Plateau, the region enjoys a vibrant tourism industry based on music, arts, and recreation.

Definition[link]

The term "The Berkshires" has overlapping but non-identical political, cultural, and geographic definitions.

Political[link]

Politically, Berkshire County, Massachusetts was a governing body formed in 1761; it includes the western extremity of the state, with its western boundary bordering New York and its eastern boundary roughly paralleling the watershed divide separating the Connecticut River watershed from the Housatonic River-Hoosic River watersheds. Geologically and physically, the Berkshires are the southern continuation of the Green Mountains of Vermont, distinct from them only by their average lower elevation and by virtue of what side of the border they fall on. In physical geography, the Berkshires extend from the Housatonic River and Hoosic River valleys in western Massachusetts, to the Connecticut River valley in north central Massachusetts, and to the foot of the lower Westfield River valley in south central Massachusetts. In Connecticut, they extend from the upper Houstatonic River valley in the north-west part of the state, south along the western border of the state, east to the Farmington River valley in north central Connecticut, south to the Quinnipiac River valley in central Connecticut, then south-west to the Housatonic River valley in southwest Connecticut.

Cultural[link]

Culturally, the term "Berkshires" includes all of the highland region in western Massachusetts west of the Connecticut River and lower Westfield River, and all of north-west Connecticut from the Farmington River valley in the northern part of the state in a diagonal arc west to Winsted and Litchfield, then southwest to Lake Candlewood on the New York border and ending in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The cultural region also includes the Taconic Mountains bordering New York, which are geologically distinct from the Berkshires orogeny. Southwest Vermont and the Taconic region of New York are occasionally grouped with the Berkshires cultural region.

Sir Francis Bernard, the Royal Governor (in office 1760-1769), named the area "Berkshire" to honor his home county in England.

Geographic[link]

Geologically, the Berkshires are bordered on the west by the Taconic Mountains, the marble valleys of the Hoosic River and Housatonic River and, further south, by the Hudson Highlands; to the east, they are bordered by the Metacomet Ridge geology. They are on the average 1,000 ft (300 m) lower and less prominent than the Green Mountains of Vermont, and form a broad, dissected plateau punctuated by hills and peaks and cut by river valleys. The Berkshires topography gradually diminishes in profile and elevation from west to east and from north to south, except where rivers have cut deep gorges and sharp bluff faces into the Berkshire plateau.

Formation[link]

The Berkshires and related Green Mountains formed over half a billion years ago when Africa collided with North America, pushing up the Appalachian Mountains and forming the bedrock of the Berkshires. Erosion over hundreds of millions of years wore these mountains down to the hills that we see today.^[2]

Elevation[link]

The average regional elevation of the Berkshires ranges from about 700 to 1,200 feet (213 to 365 meters). The geologic high point is Crum Hill, 2,841 feet (866 m) of Monroe, Massachusetts; however, nearby Mount Greylock of the Taconic Mountains, 3,491 feet (1,064 m), the highest point in the state of Massachusetts, is considered the high point of the Berkshires cultural region.

Rivers[link]

The Housatonic River, Hoosic River, Westfield River, and Deerfield River watersheds drain the Berkshires region in Massachusetts; in Connecticut the main river drainages are the Farmington River, the Naugatuck River, the Shepaug River, and the Housatonic River.

Counties[link]

The Berkshire mountain range runs through:

• Berkshire County, Massachusetts (All towns)
• Hartford County, Connecticut (Hartland, Granby)
• Franklin County, Massachusetts (Western Part)
• Hampden County, Massachusetts (Tolland, Chester, Granville, Blandford)
• Hampshire County, Massachusetts (Western Part)
• Litchfield County, Connecticut (All towns)

Municipalities[link]

The largest municipalities associated with the Berkshires cultural region include Pittsfield, North Adams, Adams, Great Barrington, Williamstown, Massachusetts;Granby, Connecticut; and Winsted, Connecticut.

History[link]

During the American Revolution a Continental Army force under Henry Knox brought captured cannons from Fort Ticonderoga by ox-drawn sleds south along the west bank of the Hudson River from the fort to Albany where he then crossed the Hudson. Knox and his men continued east through the Berkshires and finally arrived in Boston. This feat, known as the "Noble train of artillery", was accomplished in the dead of winter, 1775-1776.

Ecology[link]

The Berkshires lie within the New England-Acadian forests ecoregion.^[3]

Similarly, the United States Environmental Protection Agency in Massachusetts (Griffith et al. 1994) has defined six ecoregions within this area: Taconic Mountains, Western New England Marble Valleys, Lower Berkshire Hills, Berkshire Highlands, Vermont Piedmont, and Berkshire Transition. Each region is distinct from the others providing a unique habitat assemblage.

Much of the Hoosic and Housatonic River Valleys have underlying bedrock limestone and marble which contribute to calcareous wetlands, unique to Massachusetts. The alkaline pH waters support a diversity of plants and animals intolerant of more acidic waters, some which are state-listed rare or endangered. Combined with the rich mesic forests ranging from the northern hardwood to the taiga or sub-alpine, makes for a valuable, biologically diverse ecosystem.

The classic study of the vegetation of the Berkshire Highlands was Egler's 1940 monograph,^[4] covering the flora of an area stretching roughly from Pittsfield, MA in the west to Hatfield, MA in the east, and from Goshen, CT in the south, north to the Vermont border.

Today, efforts are being made on behalf of many organizations to preserve and manage this region for biological diversity and sustainable human development. Recreation directly related to this ecology is a popular area for trout fishing, and the area's relative pristineness contributes to the popularity of nature walks in the region. See also: Natural History of the Berkshires

Tourism[link]

The Berkshires in winter

The Berkshires are a popular tourist attraction and vacation getaway, serving the same function in relation to Connecticut and Massachusetts that the Catskills do in New York and the Poconos for Pennsylvania. With numerous trails, including part of the Appalachian Trail, large tracts of wilderness, parks like Kent Falls, Berkshire Botanical Garden and Hebert Arboretum the Berkshires are very popular with nature lovers. The area includes Bash Bish Falls, the tallest waterfall in Massachusetts. It should be noted that most of the Appalachian Trail and Bash Bish Falls are physically located in the nearby Taconic mountain range. The Berkshires are also home to dozens of summer camps, some of which date back to the turn of the 20th century.

Northwestern Connecticut features the covered bridges of Kent and West Cornwall, fly fishing, canoeing and spectacular fall foliage along the Housatonic River valley and the quiet woods and hills of the Appalachian trail and also the Enders State forest in Granby.

The Berkshire region is noted as a center for the visual and performing arts; its art museums include the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Clark Art Institute, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA), and the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA). At Williams College, the Chapin Library displays a wide selection of rare books and documents. Performing-arts institutions in the Berkshires include Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival for contemporary music in North Adams; Shakespeare & Company in Lenox; summer stock theatre festivals such as the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA and the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge; and America's first and longest-running dance festival, Jacob's Pillow.

See also[link]

• BerkShares
• Famous Berkshire Cottages: Naumkeag, Edith Wharton's The Mount, Ventfort Hall and Arundel Hall, used in the book The Penderwicks
• Litchfield Hills
• Massachusetts geography

References[link]

External links[link]

• Berkshire Visitor's Bureau
• Massachusetts State Parks in the Berkshires

v t e  State of Connecticut Hartford (capital) Topics Index Culture Constitution Delegations Elections Geography Government History Images People Visitor Attractions Regions Coastal Connecticut Gold Coast Greater Bridgeport Greater Danbury Greater Hartford Greater New Haven Litchfield Hills Lower Connecticut River Valley Naugatuck River Valley Quiet Corner Southeastern Connecticut Counties Fairfield Hartford Litchfield Middlesex New Haven New London Tolland Windham Cities Ansonia Bridgeport Bristol Danbury Derby Groton Hartford Meriden Middletown Milford New Britain New Haven New London Norwalk Norwich Shelton Stamford Torrington Waterbury West Haven Places Towns Boroughs Villages Historic Places Geography

v t e  Commonwealth of Massachusetts Boston (capital) Topics Index Administrative divisions Congressional districts Culture Demographics Economy Education Elections Geography Geology Government History Images Music People Politics Sports State symbols Transportation Villages Visitor Attractions Windmills Regions The Berkshires Blackstone Valley Cape Ann Cape Cod Central Massachusetts Greater Boston The Islands Merrimack Valley MetroWest Montachusett-North County North Shore Pioneer Valley Quabbin Valley Southeastern Massachusetts South Coast South County South Shore Western Massachusetts Counties Barnstable Berkshire Bristol Dukes Essex Franklin Hampden Hampshire Middlesex Nantucket Norfolk Plymouth Suffolk Worcester Cities (see all municipalities) Agawam Amesbury Attleboro Barnstable Beverly Boston Braintree Bridgewater Brockton Cambridge Chelsea Chicopee Easthampton Everett Fall River Fitchburg Franklin Gardner Gloucester Greenfield Haverhill Holyoke Lawrence Leominster Lowell Lynn Malden Marlborough Medford Melrose Methuen New Bedford Newburyport Newton North Adams Northampton Palmer Peabody Pittsfield Quincy Randolph Revere Salem Somerville Southbridge Springfield Taunton Waltham Watertown Westfield West Springfield Weymouth Winthrop Woburn Worcester Note: Municipalities not listed have a town meeting form of government. Municipalities listed in italics have a city form of government, but have retained the name prefix "Town of " as part of their official names.

Edith Wharton
Born	(1862-01-24)January 24, 1862 New York City, New York
Died	August 11, 1937(1937-08-11) (aged 75) Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, designer
Spouse(s)	Edward Wharton (1885–1913)

Edith Wharton (/ ˈiːdɪθ ˈwɔːrtən/; born Edith Newbold Jones, January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937), was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.

Biography[link]

Early life and marriage[link]

Wharton was born to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander in New York City. She had two brothers, Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward. The saying "Keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father's family.^[1] She was also related to the Rensselaer family, the most prestigious of the old patroon families. She had a lifelong friendship with her Rhinelander niece, landscape architect Beatrix Farrand of Reef Point in Bar Harbor, Maine, and often traveled with Henry James in Europe. Wharton combined her insider's view of America's privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit to write humorous, incisive novels and short stories of social and psychological insight. She was well acquainted with many of her era's other literary and public figures, including Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1885, at 23 years of age, she married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was 12 years older. From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and gentleman of the same social class and shared her love of travel, although they had little in common intellectually.^{[citation needed]} From the late 1880s until 1902, he suffered acute depression, and the couple ceased their extensive travel.^[2] At that time his depression manifested as a more serious disorder, after which they lived almost exclusively at The Mount, their estate designed by Edith Wharton. In 1908 her husband's mental state was determined to be incurable. She divorced him in 1913.^[2] Around the same time, Edith was overcome with the harsh criticisms leveled by the naturalist writers. Later in 1908 she began an affair with Morton Fullerton, a journalist for The Times, in whom she found an intellectual partner.^[3]

In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She was also a garden designer, interior designer, and taste-maker of her time. She wrote several design books, including her first published work, The Decoration of Houses of 1897, co-authored by Ogden Codman. Another is the generously illustrated Italian Villas and Their Gardens of 1904.

Travels[link]

The Mount, 2006

In 1902 she built The Mount, her estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which survives today as an example of her design principles. There, Edith Wharton wrote several of her novels, including The House of Mirth (1905), the first of many chronicles of the nature of old New York, and entertained the cream of American literary society, including her close friend, the novelist Henry James. Although she spent many months traveling in Europe nearly every year, The Mount was her primary residence until 1911. When living there and when traveling abroad, Wharton was usually driven to appointments by her longtime chauffeur and friend Charles Cook, a native of nearby South Lee, Massachusetts.^[4][5] When her marriage deteriorated, however, she decided to move permanently to France, living initially at 58 Rue de Varenne, Paris, in an apartment that belonged to George Washington Vanderbilt II.

Page from original manuscript of The House of Mirth, in Edith Wharton's hand

Helped by her influential connections to the French government, primarily through Walter Berry (then president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris), she was one of the few foreigners in France allowed to travel to the front lines during the First World War. Wharton described those trips in the series of articles Fighting France: From Dunkerque to Belfort.

Throughout the war she worked tirelessly in charitable efforts for refugees and, in 1916 was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in recognition of her commitment to the displaced. The scope of her relief work included setting up workrooms for unemployed Frenchwomen, organizing concerts to provide work for musicians, opening tuberculosis hospitals and founding the American Hostels for Belgian refugees. In 1916 Wharton edited The Book of the Homeless, composed of writings, art, erotica and musical scores by almost every major contemporary European artist. When World War I ended in 1918 she abandoned her fashionable urban address for the delights of the country at the Pavillon Colombe in nearby Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt.

Wharton was a committed supporter of French imperialism, describing herself as a "rabid imperialist", and the war solidified her political conservatism.^[6] After World War I, she travelled to Morocco as the guest of the resident general, Gen. Hubert Lyautey and wrote a book In Morocco, about her experiences. Wharton's writing on her Moroccan travels is full of praise for the French administration and for Lyautey and his wife in particular.

After the war she divided her time between Paris and Hyères, Provence, where she finished The Age of Innocence in 1920.

In 1927 she purchased a villa, Castel Sainte-Claire, on the site of a 17th-century convent, in the hills above Hyères in Provence, where she lived during the winters and springs. She called the villa "Sainte-Claire du Chateau" and filled the garden with cacti and subtropical plants. She returned to the U.S. only once after the war, to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Yale University in 1923.

Photographic portrait of Edith Wharton

Later years[link]

The Age of Innocence (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature,^[7] making Wharton the first woman to win the award.

Wharton was friend and confidante to many gifted intellectuals of her time: Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau and André Gide were all guests of hers at one time or another. Theodore Roosevelt, Bernard Berenson, and Kenneth Clark were valued friends as well. But her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald is described by the editors of her letters as "one of the better known failed encounters in the American literary annals." She spoke fluent French (as well as several other languages), and many of her books were published in both French and English.

In 1934 Wharton's autobiography A Backward Glance was published. In the view of Judith E. Funston, writing on Edith Wharton in American National Biography, "What is most notable about A Backward Glance,', however, is what it does not tell: her criticism of Lucretia Jones [her mother], her difficulties with Teddy, and her affair with Morton Fullerton, which did not come to light until her papers, deposited in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library, were opened in 1968."^[8]

Wharton's Le Pavilion Colombe,', Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France

Death[link]

Edith Wharton died of a stroke in 1937 at the domaine Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, in the département of Seine-et-Oise (78), but now in Val d'Oise (95). The street is today called rue Edith Wharton.^[9][10] She is buried in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.^[2]

Writing style[link]

Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by a subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class pre-World War I society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics, in such works as The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence.

In addition to writing several respected novels, Wharton produced a wealth of short stories and is particularly well regarded for her ghost stories.

Books[link]

Adaptations[link]

Cinema[link]

« Although Edith Wharton's fiction was adapted for the cinema quite early in her career, references to films are comparatively scarce in her work »^[11]

• The House of Mirth (La Maison du Brouillard) , a 1918 silent film adaptation (6 reels) (of the 1905 novel) directed by French film director Albert Capellani, starring Katherine Harris Barrymore as Lily Bart. It is considered to be a lost film
• The Glimpses Of The Moon, a 1923 silent film adaptation (7 reels) (of the 1922 novel) directed for Paramount Studios by Allan Dwan, starring Bebe Daniels, David Powell, Nita Naldi and Maurice Costello. It is considered to be a lost film
• The Age of Innocence, a 1924 silent film adaptation (7 reels) (of the 1920 novel) directed for Warner Brothers by Wesley Ruggles, starring Beverly Bayne and Elliott Dexter. It is considered to be a lost film
• The Marriage Playground, a 1929 talking film adaptation (70 minutes) (of the 1928 novel The Children) directed for Paramount Studios by Lothar Mendes, starring rising star Fredric March in leading role (as Martin Boyne), Mary Brian (as Judith Wheater), Kay Francis (as Lady Wrench)...
• The Age of Innocence, a 1934 film adaptation (9 reels / circa 80–90 minutes) (of the 1920 novel) directed for RKO Studios by Philip Moeller, starring Irene Dunne and John Boles.
• Strange Wives, a 1934 or 1935 film adaptation (8 reels / 75 minutes) (of the 1934 short story Bread Upon the Waters) directed for Universal by Richard Thorpe, starring Roger Pryor (as Jimmy King), June Clayworth (as Nadja), Esther Ralston (as Olga)... It is considered to be a lost film
• The Old Maid, a 1939 film adaptation (95 minutes) (of the 1924 short novella) directed by Edmund Goulding starring Bette Davis.
• A 1944 film version of the 1911 novel Ethan Frome starring Joan Crawford was proposed but never came to fruition^[12]
• Ethan Frome (99 minutes) directed by John Madden and released in 1993,
• The Age of Innocence (138 minutes) directed by Martin Scorsese and released in 1993,
• The Reef (88 minutes) directed by Robert Allan Ackerman and released in 1999.
• The House of Mirth (140 minutes) directed by Terence Davies and released in 2000, starring Gillian Anderson as Lily Bart.^[13]

TV[link]

• Ethan Frome, a 1960 (CBS) TV US adaptation, directed by Alex Segal, starring Sterling Hayden as Ethan Frome, Julie Harris as Mattie Silver and Clarice Blackburn as Zenobia Frome. First Wharton adaptation on television.
• Looking Back, a 1981 TV US loose adaptation of two biographies of Edith Wharton: A Backward Glance, Wharton's own 1934 autobiography & Edith Wharton, a 1975 biography by R.W.B. Lewis (1976 Bancroft Prize-winner).
• The House of Mirth, a 1981 TV US adaptation, directed by Adrian Hall, starring William Atherton, Geraldine Chaplin and Barbara Blossom
• The Buccaneers, a 1995 BBC mini-series, starring Carla Gugino and Greg Wise^[13]

Theatre[link]

• "The House of Mirth" was adapted as a play in 1906 by Edith Wharton and Clyde Fitch^[14][15]
• "The Age of Innocence" was adapted as a play in 1928. Katharine Cornell played the role of Ellen Olenska.

In popular culture[link]

• In The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Edith Wharton (Clare Higgins) travels across North Africa with Indiana Jones in Chapter 16, Tales of Innocence.

• Edith Wharton is mentioned in the HBO television series Entourage in the third season's 13th episode: Vince is handed a screenplay for Wharton's The Glimpses of the Moon by Amanda, his new agent, for a film to be directed by Sam Mendes. In the same episode, period films of Wharton's work are lampooned by agent Ari Gold, who says that all her stories are "about a guy who likes a girl, but he can't have sex with her for five years, because those were the times!" Carla Gugino, who plays Amanda, was the protagonist of the BBC-PBS adaptation of The Buccaneers (1995), one of her early jobs.

• A musical version of The Glimpses of the Moon was presented in New York City in the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room in early 2008.

• Suzanne Vega's seventh studio release Beauty & Crime contains a song named "Edith Wharton's Figurines."

• "Edith Wharton's Journey" is a radio adaptation, for the NPR series Radio Tales, of the short story "A Journey" from Edith Wharton's collection The Greater Inclination.

• In an episode of the CW show Gossip Girl, "The Age of Dissonance", the cast star in a production of Wharton's The Age of Innocence.

• "Rosedale in Love" (2011) retells the story of "The House of Mirth" from the perspective of Lily's despised Jewish suitor Simon Rosedale.

References[link]

Footnotes[link]

Sources[link]

Further reading[link]

• The Letters of Edith Wharton (R. W. B. Lewis and Nancy Lewis, eds.) ISBN 0-02-034400-7, particularly the editorial introductions to the chronological sections, especially for 1902–07, 1911–14, 1919–27, and 1928–37, and the editorial footnotes to the letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald (8 June 1925)
• Novellas and Other Writings (Cynthia Griffin Wolff, ed.) (The Library of America, 1990) ISBN 978-0-940450-53-0, which contains her autobiography, A Backward Glance.
• Twilight Sleep (R. F.Godfrey, ed.) ISBN 0-684-83964-4
• Benstock, Shari (1994) No Gifts From Chance: a biography of Edith Wharton. New York: Scribner's ISBN 0-292-70274-4
• Lee, Hermione (2007) Edith Wharton. London: Chatto & Windus ISBN 0-7011-6665-7; New York: Knopf
• Lewis, R. W. B. (1975) Edith Wharton: a biography New York: Harper & Row ISBN 0-06-012603-5
• Lowry, Elizabeth (December 9, 2011). "What Edith Knew: Freeing Wharton from the Master's Shadow". Harper's Magazine 317 (1903): 96–100, 102. 
• Wolff, Cynthia Griffin (1977) A Feast of Words Oxford. ISBN 0-19-502117-7

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Edith Wharton

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Edith Wharton

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Edith Wharton

• Edith Wharton Collection Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University
• The Mount: Estate and gardens designed by Edith Wharton
• The Edith Wharton Papers at the Lilly Library, Indiana University
• Edith Wharton Society
• Edith Wharton at C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History