Edith Wharton (January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer and designer. The Age of Innocence (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making her the first woman to win the award. 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 she employed both humor and profound empathy to describe the lives of New York's upper-class and the vanishing of their world in the early years of the 20th century. In contrast, she used a harsher tone in her novel Ethan Frome to convey the atmosphere of lower-class rural Massachusetts.