A previously unpublished short story by Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, has been published for the first time more than 100 years after it was written. The story, titled The Men Who Saved the World, was discovered in the author's archives at Yale University and appears in the latest issue of Strand magazine.
The manuscript, believed to have been written no earlier than July 1918, was found as two corrected but undated typescripts in the Edith Wharton Collection at Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. The story is set during a dinner party in a French chateau towards the end of the First World War, where wealthy residents attempt to return to pre-war normalcy despite the ongoing conflict nearby.
The tale features a young American nurse named Milly Arden, who observes the household's privileged return to normalcy while grappling with the horrors of war. The character is thought to be partly autobiographical, as Wharton herself had extensive experience with field hospitals during the war and helped establish medical facilities for women and children. Her observations were previously published in a series of articles called Fighting France.
Andrew Gulli, editor-in-chief of the Strand, noted the story's relevance to contemporary events. "We live in a time where we're very far away from a lot of horrific events that are happening around the world, and this story sort of encapsulates that mood," he said. The story was first analysed by Isabelle Parsons, a Wharton scholar at the Open University, in the Edith Wharton Review in 2023.
Parsons described the story as an experimental attempt by Wharton to confront the traumatic effects of warfare, noting its "explicit references to amputation as medical care at the front." The discovery adds to a growing list of lost works by Wharton, including a 1901 play called The Shadow of Doubt unearthed in Texas in 2017.
