My Article on Wharton in Today’s WSJ—Part II

Here’s the second part of my article, appearing on the Leisure & Arts page in today’s Wall Street Journal. (Part I is here.)
Touting the Mount’s importance as one of this country’s few National Historic Landmarks devoted to a woman, Stephanie Copeland in 1998 persuaded First Lady Hillary Clinton to walk in Wharton’s footsteps. Ms. Copeland believes this visit directly resulted in what became “a big turning point for us” — a $2.9 million matching grant from Save America’s Treasures. And last April, First Lady-librarian Laura Bush spoke as guest of honor at an event celebrating the inauguration of the reinstalled library.
But the real hero in this latest chapter was George Ramsden, who reaped an undeniably enormous profit over the $80,000 he paid for most of the books in 1984. He arguably earned this reward, though, by devoting 20 years to doggedly assembling, preserving and cataloging the volumes (with detailed information about inscriptions, notations and significance to Wharton’s life and work). Most important, he resisted pressures to break up the collection and sell it piecemeal. In a recent phone interview, he decried as “cultural vandalism” the dispersal of formerly intact libraries of such celebrated authors as Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad and Henry James.
Mr. Ramsden writes in his catalog, published in 1999, that Wharton’s library at the time of her death consisted of some 4,000 volumes. She willed the majority of them to the distinguished art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, in trust for his young son Colin, Wharton’s godson. Approximately 1,400 other volumes, bequeathed elsewhere, were destroyed in the London blitz during World War II. Among these: books on art and archaeology.
After purchasing most of Colin Clark’s trove in 1984 from Maggs Bros., a London book dealer, Mr. Ramsden continued searching for and acquiring other stray volumes — about 550 that were still on the shelves of the Clarks’ Saltwood Castle, and about 50 more from other sources. When I spoke to him recently, this Wharton sleuth was about to ship eight newly discovered volumes to Lenox.
Mr. Ramsden, who discusses in his catalog the central importance of libraries to Wharton, as reflected in her autobiography and novels, always wanted his hoard to go to the Mount. But he stuck firmly to his price, which Ms. Copeland could not meet. Then an acquaintance of hers, Lord Christopher Tugendhat—owner of the largest private collection of Wharton first editions in England—helped broker a deal last year whereby two benefactors, Robert and Elisabeth Wilmers, would lend the purchase price to the Mount, which would launch an “adopt-a-book” fund-raising campaign to repay the loan. The campaign, totaling $35 million, will also endow the library and benefit the continuing care of the Mount.
Meanwhile, restoration and refurnishing proceed apace, along with literary readings and horticultural happenings. Last year, Wharton’s elaborately composed gardens were restored to their appearance in photographs from the time of her occupancy. Photographs also guide restoration of Wharton’s personal living quarters—her bedroom and the adjoining boudoir where she received friends, conducted household business and perhaps pored over manuscripts.
No original furnishings, wall coverings or draperies remain in the house (although some wallpaper fragments do exist), so Ms. Copeland plans to use reproductions, as well as some period antiques, that mimic the decor in the photographs. Among recent purchases in France: a Louis XVI painted chaise longue and a Louis XV writing desk.
Several other rooms, restored down to their ornamental plaster rosettes and garlands, have been reimagined as temporary showcases for select American interior designers. Their charge was to furnish the rooms in accordance with principles set forth by Wharton and her co-author, architect Ogden Codman, in “The Decoration of Houses”: proportion, harmony, simplicity and suitability. Wharton’s writings on this subject helped to establish the profession of interior design. Next summer, a group of distinguished French designers will be invited to reimagine those rooms and others, to be followed, at two-year intervals, by English and Italian designers.
But if you really want to go back to the Gilded Age, journey to the Mount at noon on Columbus Day, Oct. 9, when a cavalcade of historic horse-drawn carriages (bearing members of the public who have paid $250 for a day-long ride to benefit the Mount) will arrive at Wharton’s lush grounds, driven and attended by costumed coaching enthusiasts from around the country. It will, Ms. Copeland promises, suffuse you with the Wharton aura.