More than a War Correspondent: Edith Wharton’s chronicles about French civilians in the Great War and the beginning of citizen journalism

Neglected during decades, Edith Wharton’s literary production on the First World War has finally received due attention during these last years. McLoughlin’s scholarly work (2005) on The Marne, A Son at the Front and “Writing a War Story”, together with Olin-Ammentorp’s Edith Wharton’s Writings from the Great War (2004) have offered new documented sources and a deep analysis on how the Great War affected Wharton’s fiction. However, within these sources a distinction should be made: Wharton’s short stories differ greatly from her essays and other non-fiction pieces published contemporaneously. Whereas in her fiction the Great War becomes a character itself, in her non-fiction writing Wharton abandons her narrative voice to develop a protagonist voice. In fact, some of these pieces can be read as war chronicles that advance the most significant features of war correspondents and citizen journalists throughout the 20th century.