The Children by Edith Wharton is a novel that explores complex social and moral themes within the context of a post-World War I Europe. The story is centered around Martin Boyne, a middle-aged engineer, who is engaged to be married to Rose Sellars, a woman he has loved for many years. However, his life takes an unexpected turn during a trip to Switzerland. While in Switzerland, Boyne encounters a group of seven children, the Wheater family, who are traveling alone. The children, ranging from a baby to a teenager, are from various failed marriages of an American heiress and an international businessman. They are charming, precocious, and somewhat neglected, and Boyne quickly becomes entangled in their lives.

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray realistically the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.