The Age of Innocence

"The Age of Innocence" is considered by many critics to be author Edith Wharton's masterpiece. When it was published in 1920, it was received with rapturous reviews and earned Wharton the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making her the first woman in history to receive this honor. Set amid the aristocracy of New York City in the early part of the 20th century—a world with which Wharton was deeply familiar—the book relates the story of Newland Archer, a rich New York bachelor who has become engaged to fellow socialite May Welland. When Miss Welland's exotic cousin the Countess Ellen Olenska arrives in the city, rumors begin to swirl that she has left her husband—a European Count—and is seeking a divorce, a scandalous development for the time. Archer becomes obsessed with the Countess and his fascination with her sets up a love triangle between Archer and the two ladies, between whom he is helplessly torn. An enormously popular and critically acclaimed novel when it first appeared, "The