Special Veterans Day Reading and Music at the Mount
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LENOX, Mass. – This Veterans Day, Wednesday, Nov. 11, The Mount, Edith Wharton Cultural Center, presents a dramatic reading of Wharton's newly discovered wartime story, "The Men Who Saved the World," performed by Anne Undeland.
Trek Track Collective string quartet will follow with music from the Great War. Performances take place at 3:30 pm and 5:30 pm in the mansion's elegant drawing room.
Scholars speculate that Wharton wrote "The Men Who Saved the World" in 1918. Over a century later, the unfinished manuscript was discovered in the author's archives at Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It was published in June 2026 in The Strand Magazine.
According to a press release:
Set in the summer of 1918, the story unfolds inside a French château just a few miles from the front. The dining room has been restored to its prewar elegance, with orchids, candlelight, and fine dinnerware arranged on a table where, earlier in the war, an army surgeon amputated limbs. Outside, artillery fire and falling bombs punctuate the night. Inside, the guests carry on the rituals of polite society. The story explores the gap between the longing to return to prewar life and the horrors of World War I.
Wharton's wartime fiction was informed by her own humanitarian work in France. During World War I, Wharton founded and administered three organizations that together provided aid to 10,000 war refugees over five years. She also organized shipments of blankets, clothing, and other essential supplies to soldiers at the front.
"During the war years, Edith Wharton devoted herself to humanitarian work, frontline reporting and advocacy for Allied victory," said Susan Wissler, The Mount's Executive Director. "It feels right to mark this Veterans Day with this newly discovered short story, which offers a searing glimpse into upper society's disconnect with a war happening right outside the window. It is a privilege to bring her voice back to the house she built, and to honor, together, all who served."
Tickets are $30 for Mount Members, $35 for the general public, and free for veterans. Tickets and information are available at edithwharton.org.
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