This vintage book contains Edith Wharton's 1919 collection of essays on French culture, "French Ways and Their Meanings". Written during World War One, these thought-provoking and insightful essays explore French society in the early-twentieth century, and have a particular focus on the difference between French and American women. Her comparison of French and American societies still rings true today, and deals with topics ranging from marriage to equality. Edith Wharton (1862 - 1937) was an American novelist, designer, and writer of short stories. She married her uniquely insightful experience of America's aristocracy with a natural wit, in order to construct humorous novels and short stories that boasted uncanny understanding on a social and psychological level. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 for her novel "The Age of Innocence". This vintage book is being republished in an affordable, modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.