Now, after years of research and verification, “The Cruise of the Vanadis” is being published in France. The fictionalized travel narrative–one of Wharton’s first literary efforts–is based on a cruise she took to Algeria, Italy, Turkey and Greece when she was 26. The manuscript wound up in Hyeres because Wharton had a home there. When she died in 1937, her heirs donated some of her papers to the local library. A Yale doctoral student is already planning to write a dissertation on the novel, which has been deemed authentic by Wharton experts.
