This early work by Edith Wharton was originally published in 1907 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. ‘The Fruit of the Tree’ is a novel set in a small mill town and is infused with key social ideas such as labour reform, class, and euthanasia. Edith Wharton was born in New York City in 1862. Wharton’s first poems were published in Scribner’s Magazine. In 1891, the same publication printed the first of her many short stories, titled ‘Mrs. Manstey’s View’. Over the next four decades, they – along with other well-established American publications such as Atlantic Monthly, Century Magazine, Harper’s and Lippincott’s – regularly published her work.