Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is an elegant, masterful portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York. With vivid power, Wharton evokes a time of gaslit streets, formal dances held in the ballrooms of stately brownstones, and society people "who dreaded scandal more than disease." This is Newland Archer's world as he prepares to many the docile May Welland. Then, suddenly, the mysterious, intensely nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a long absence, and Newland Archer's world is never the same. Edith Wharton's classic tale of thwarted love is an exuberantly comic and profoundly moving look at the passions of the human heart, as well as a literary achievement of the highest order.
Editorial Reviews
"There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as 'major'--and Edith Wharton is one." —Gore Vidal
"Wharton's characters leap out from the pages and...become very real. You know their hearts, souls and yearnings, and the price they pay for those yearnings." —San Francisco Examiner
"One of the best novels of the 20th century." —NY Times Book Review
"A handful of Wharton's standards get the "Everyman's Library" upgrade. These are more expensive than paperback alternatives but still reasonably priced, and the hardcover quality is worth the extra bucks if you can afford it." —Michael Rogers, Library Journal
About the Author
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was one of America's greatest writers. The author of more than forty books, including The Age of Innocence, Wharton was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, and full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Wharton was the principal designer of her 1902 country home The Mount in Lenox, Mass. The Mount's elegant house and gardens reflect the neoclassical design principles that she espoused in her works The Decoration of Houses and Italian Villas and Their Gardens.
