The Age of Innocence » (Special Value)

One of America's most important novelists, Edith Wharton was a refined, relentless chronicler of the Gilded Age and its social mores. Along with close friend Henry James, she helped define literature at the turn of the 20th century, even as she wrote classic nonfiction on travel, decorating and her own life.

A young lawyer endures a moral struggle between passion and social conscience in Old New York. Edith Wharton's elegant portrait of desire and betrayal earned her the first Pulitzer Prize for literature ever awarded to a woman.

The New York Times Book Review - William Lyon Phelps

Here is a novel whose basis is a story. It begins on a night at the opera. The characters are introduced naturally—every action and every conversation advance the plot. The style is a thing of beauty from first page to last.... The appearance of a book such as The Age of Innocence is a matter for public rejoicing. It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and looks like a permanent addition to literature.

Editor's Introduction by Carol J. Singley A Note on the Text I. The Age of Innocence II. Background Readings Questions of Culture Thomas Bender, from "The Metropolitan Gentry: Culture against Politics" George Sanyayana, from "The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy" Walt Whitman, from "Democratic Vistas" Calvin Tomkins, from "Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art" Ida Van Gastel, "The Location and Decoration of Houses in The Age of Innocence" Marriage and Divorce Steve