Edith Wharton
Lived here · 1907–1908
Wharton rented 58 rue de Varenne from George Vanderbilt and used it as her Paris winter home in 1907 and 1908.
58 rue de Varenne
Still standing
Outside only
A building
The apartment Edith Wharton rented from George Vanderbilt for the winters of 1907 and 1908 — her first real Paris home, a few doors from the address that would become her permanent one.
- 58 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris
- Wharton's Paris winter home, 1907–08
Illustration
The place, briefly
Edith Wharton rented this apartment from George Vanderbilt and used it as her Paris winter home in 1907 and 1908. It was the beginning of the shift that would end with her leaving America altogether.
These winters mattered for her writing as much as her social life. She was working on The Custom of the Country, and she was moving in a French intellectual society that took her seriously as a novelist in a way New York never quite had. She met Morton Fullerton in this period, and the affair that followed — she was in her mid-forties, and it appears to have been the first time she experienced anything of the kind — cut through a marriage that had been unhappy for years.
In January 1910 she moved a few doors along the same street to number 53, which became her permanent Paris address. The two numbers are easy to confuse and often are.
Key facts
- George Vanderbilt
- The winters of 1907 and 1908
- The Custom of the Country
- 53 rue de Varenne, from January 1910
- Private — exterior only
In images
Timeline
Wharton rents 58 rue de Varenne from George Vanderbilt as a winter home.
She moves to 53 rue de Varenne, along the same street.
On the map
Questions before you go
What is the difference between 53 and 58 rue de Varenne?
Wharton rented 58 as a winter home in 1907–08, from George Vanderbilt. She took 53, across the street, in January 1910, and that became her principal Paris address.
Writers who knew this place
Within walking distance
53 rue de Varenne
The apartment Edith Wharton took in January 1910 and made her principal Paris address — and which became, during the First World War, the headquarters of one of the largest private relief operations in France.
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An eighteenth-century Paris mansion where Auguste Rodin rented four rooms in 1908, later took the whole building, and which he gave away in advance — donating his entire output to the French State on condition it buy the house and turn it into his museum. It opened in 1919, two years after his death.
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Théâtre de Babylone
A small theatre at 38 boulevard Raspail, founded by Jean-Marie Serreau in 1952 and gone within a few years. On 5 January 1953 it staged the first performance of Samuel Beckett's En attendant Godot, directed by Roger Blin — the night modern theatre changed.
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The Little Review Paris office, 80 rue de l'Université
The Paris office of The Little Review, the magazine that serialised Ulysses and published Djuna Barnes — a publication link rather than a place she is known to have worked in.
Visit the placeReferences
References
The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document 58 rue de Varenne, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.
1Edith Wharton: A Chronology
WebsiteThe Edith Wharton SocietyUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 58 rue de Varenne page.
2Inside Edith Wharton's Paris
WebsiteBonjour ParisUsed forWeb source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 58 rue de Varenne page.
3Edith Wharton
BiographyAlfred A. Knopf, 2007Used forBiographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to 58 rue de Varenne.
4The Book of the Homeless (Le livre des sans-foyer)
NonfictionCharles Scribner's Sons, 1916Used forPublished analysis and historical context used in preparing the 58 rue de Varenne page.
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Why these sources are here
These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
Explore more resourcesNewsletter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.