Edith Wharton's first published story, "Mrs. Manstey's View," was accepted by Scribner's Magazine. Wharton's story did not come from the write-about-what-you-know school: she was 29 years old, brought up in wealth and high society, recently married to a prominent banker, and as opposite to her destitute heroine as she was to being a struggling young writer.
"Mrs. Manstey, in the long hours which she spent at her window, was not idle. She read a little, and knitted numberless stockings; but the view surrounded and shaped her life as the sea does a lonely island. When her rare callers came it was difficult for her to detach herself from the contemplation of the opposite window-washing, or the scrutiny of certain green points in a neighboring flower-bed which might, or might not, turn into hyacinths, while she feigned an interest in her visitor's anecdotes about some unknown grandchild. Mrs. Manstey's real friends were the denizens of the yards, the hyacinths, the magnolia, the green parrot, the maid who fed the cats, the doctor who studied late behind his mustard-colored curtains; and the confidant of her tenderer musings was the church-spire floating in the sunset."
--from "Mrs. Manstey's View"
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