The address where the Jones family lived around 1868 to 1870, when the future Edith Wharton was a child of six or seven — the years that gave her fluent French and a lifelong sense that Europe was home.
Edith Jones — she would not be Edith Wharton until 1885 — spent part of her childhood in Paris. Her family lived at this address for roughly two years around 1868 to 1870, when she was six and seven.
The Joneses were New York money living abroad partly because it was cheaper after the Civil War, and the effect on their daughter was decisive. She learned French, German and Italian as a child, absorbed European cities as ordinary rather than exotic, and acquired the double perspective that runs through everything she later wrote about American society. The move to Paris in 1906 was in that sense a return.
The address needs a caution. The family's home is recorded on the avenue Joséphine, a street since renamed the avenue Marceau. Because the renaming was accompanied by numbering changes that are not fully documented, historic number 61 should not be assumed to correspond to today's number 61. This record pins the avenue rather than a building, and does not claim to identify the house.
The Jones family is living on the avenue Joséphine in Paris.
The family moves on; Edith is seven.
Wharton returns to Paris as an adult, staying first at the place des États-Unis.
Yes. Her family lived on the avenue Joséphine, now the avenue Marceau, for roughly two years around 1868 to 1870, when she was six and seven.
Because the avenue was renamed and renumbered, and the historic number 61 cannot safely be equated with today's number 61. Rather than assert a false address, the record pins the street.
Lived here · 1868–1870
The Jones family lived at 61 avenue Josephine, on a street since renamed avenue Marceau, when the future Edith Wharton was six and seven. The historic number should not be equated with today's number 61; the building is not securely identified.
The brasserie on the Place de l'Alma that Cendrars scholarship names as one of the writer's regular stops — a Right Bank address in a café life mapped mostly through Montparnasse.
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The concrete temple of the avant-garde — where The Rite of Spring caused a riot in 1913, and the Ballet Mécanique caused another in 1926, with Ezra Pound shouting over the pianolas.
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The apartment Paul Gauguin and Mette Gad took after the birth of their first child — an expensive address near the Arc de Triomphe, and the setting of his 1875 portrait of his sleeping wife.
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Where Edith Wharton stayed with her brother when she arrived in Paris in 1906 — the beginning of the move that would take her out of America permanently.
Visit the placeThe sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document 61 avenue Joséphine (now avenue Marceau), the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 61 avenue Joséphine (now avenue Marceau) page.
Biographical evidence used to verify chronology, relationships, and historical context connected to 61 avenue Joséphine (now avenue Marceau).
Published analysis and historical context used in preparing the 61 avenue Joséphine (now avenue Marceau) page.
Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the 61 avenue Joséphine (now avenue Marceau) page.
These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
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The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.
