LEAD:
Edith
Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize, a celebrated
designer and a close friend of fellow novelist Henry James. Hermione
Lee, who has previously written a biography of Virginia Woolf says
Wharton was both chronicler and critic of life in the upper classes of
New York City at the dawn of the 20th Century.
RUNS 6:37
END CUE: "...distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada.