Edith Wharton Goes to Morocco, with Stacy Holden

In this episode, we return to the theme of travelers.

One of the most famous Americans to write about Morocco was Edith Wharton. Wharton was a popular and acclaimed author whose work focused primarily on New York City elite society at the turn of the twentieth century. She spent a great deal of time in Paris, spoke French fluently, and was intimately connected to important artists and politicians in both the US and France. She is best known for her novels, the House of Mirth and the Age of Innoncence, the latter which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize.

What does this have to do with Morocco? Well, less well known is Wharton’s 1920 travelogue, titled “In Morocco,” ­­which she wrote after a 1917 visit in which she was hosted by Hubert Lyautey, the very first Resident General of the French Protectorate of Morocco. As a piece of literature, it ...