Description

Edith Whartons The Age of Innocence is a piercing exploration of the constraints and conventions of upperclass society in New York during the Gilded Age The novel tells the story of Newland Archer a privileged lawyer engaged to the conventional and lovely May Welland However the sudden arrival of Mays cousin Ellen Olenska who has fled a disastrous marriage in Europe disrupts Archers settled life As he grows increasingly captivated by Ellen Archer grapples with his commitment to May and his deep longing for a life less bounded by societal norms Whartons novel for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921 skillfully dissects the complexities of love passion and duty all set against a backdrop of fading aristocratic values