The Age of Innocence (Paperback)

Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that inspired Martin Scorsese's film. Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, this novel highlights the unrest of New York aristocratic society at the end of the 19th century with the arrival of Countess Ellen Olenska. She returns to the United States after annulling her marriage in Europe and becomes close to Newland Archer, the fiancé of her cousin, the beautiful May Welland. The two fall in love at a time when keeping up appearances is more important than love and happiness. Written by Edith Wharton shortly after the end of World War I, The Age of Innocence is an accurate portrait of a contradictory bourgeois society, responsible for stripping the nobility of political power, but which reproduced models and patterns of behavior typical of the era when barons, counts, viscounts, and dukes were in power. A period of ostentatious displays of wealth through grand banquets and receptions, mansions, and luxurious clothing. Edith Wharton reveals a story of inertia that binds people to the values with which they were raised, creating barriers to personal and emotional fulfillment.