In Xingu, Edith Wharton highlights her ability to use satire, wit and humor to illustrate a group of snobby ladies who lunch. Other stories include"Coming Home," a war story of a Frenchwoman who saves her fianc's home and family by giving herself to a German officer. Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.