The Decoration of Houses

Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr.; New York: Charles Scribner’s; 1897; Codman Family Papers, Historic New England 

In 1897 Ogden Codman Jr. and future novelist Edith Wharton (1862-1937) co-authored their landmark study, The Decoration of Houses (1897). It is unclear who initiated the project, but by December 1896 they were hard at work. Most of the completed writing is likely Wharton’s, yet the book’s photographs, bibliography, and preference for French design all point to Codman. A resounding success from the moment it appeared, it has never gone out of print.          

Although The Decoration of Houses was not the first American guide to home decoration, its outsized influence may be attributed to its systematic presentation of rules, authoritative tone, and lavish illustrations of homes “of some importance.” By declaring “proportion is the good breeding of architecture,” dispensing advice about the proper outfitting of a ballroom, and frequently lapsing into untranslated French, Wharton and Codman struck a tone of unassailable patrician authority that appealed to aspirational readers. Championing the principles of order, hierarchy, and symmetry (dubbed “the sanity of decoration”), the pair banned all originality of expression (“to conform… is no more servile than to pay one’s taxes”). For good measure, they condemned wallpaper, electric light, and Christmas trees. 

Unlike earlier design reformers who promoted “honesty” in decoration, Wharton and Codman—as The Nation quipped—“snap their fingers at sincerity [and] have no horror of shams.” False doors and windows, concealed entrances, imitation materials, and illusionistic spaces were all allowable as long as they contributed to the visual pleasure of an overall design. Explaining it was the decorator’s mission “not to explain illusions, but to produce them,” the authors revealed more about their own lives than they might have realized. Much of Codman’s world, of course, was built upon a series of successfully managed illusions—while Wharton founded her literary career upon characters who often wield the power of a beautifully told lie.