The Age Of Innocence

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s elegant and incisive portrait of passion restrained by social convention. Set in the upper-class circles of 1870s New York, the novel follows Newland Archer, a well-bred young lawyer engaged to the beautiful and proper May Welland. His ordered world begins to unravel with the return of Countess Ellen Olenska—May’s unconventional cousin—who has fled a scandalous marriage in Europe. Ellen’s independence, intelligence, and disregard for societal norms challenge everything Newland thought he desired. Torn between duty and desire, he finds himself at a crossroads where every choice comes at a cost. With sharp wit and emotional depth, Wharton explores the quiet devastations of lives lived within rigid expectations. A timeless study of love, sacrifice, and lost possibilities, The Age of Innocence captures both the elegance and the suffocating constraints of a world governed by appearances.