Lauer, Kristen O., and Margaret P. Murray, Edith Wharton: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography, Garland, 1990.

Although no longer up to date, this volume offers the most complete information about virtually every important piece of criticism of Wharton's work from original publication through 1987.

Lewis, R. W. B., Edith Wharton: A Biography, Harper & Row, 1975.

At well over five hundred pages, the Pulitzer Prize—winning Edith Wharton was a groundbreaking biography of Wharton, written with the help of thousands of pages of letters, journal, and other documents that were sealed for thirty years after Wharton's death. Lewis's biography offered the first substantive look at Wharton's relationships with the various men in her life.

Pennell, Melissa McFarland, Student Companion to Edith Wharton, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003.

Part of Greenwood's Student Companions to Classic Writers Series, this volume is an introduction to Wharton's life and work written specifically for the general...