The opening moments of Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel The Custom of the Country depict the newly moneyed Undine Spragg lounging in the Stentorian, a New York hotel evidently named for its raucous guests. The “highly-varnished” rooms feature “heavy gilt armchairs,” gaudy bric-à-brac, and “salmon-pink” walls on which hang portraits of aristocrats whose excesses ushered them … Continue reading Decorating Houses With Edith Wharton: On Interior Design as Art and Literary Practice