Edith did not attend school; according to the custom of the day for well-to-do young women, she was taught at home by her governess and tutors. She became proficient in French, German, and Italian. The books in her father’s large library became her passion. She read English and French literature by Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jean Racine, Jean La Fontaine, and Victor Hugo. She read all of Johann Goethe’s plays and poems and the poetry of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edith was fascinated with stories and began composing them herself when she was a child; she called the process “making-up.” Her parents did not encourage her writing; however, after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow recommended that several of Edith’s poems be published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine, her parents recognized her talent and had a volume of her poems (entitled Verses) privately published. A year later, when Edith was only sixteen years old, she completed a 30,000 word novella entitled Fast and Loose, a story about manners that mocks high society.
At the age of seventeen, Edith was immersed in her books. She spent her time studying, reading, and writing and was indifferent to people her own age. Worried about Edith, her parents decided that she should make her debut in society. Despite her natural shyness, she was a social success. In August 1882, at the age of nineteen, Edith became engaged to Harry Stevens, a prominent figure in New York society. By October of the same year, the engagement was broken as a result of meddling by the mothers of the engaged couple.
