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The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of desire and duty in Gilded Age New York. A respected lawyer and scion of one of Manhattan's most important families, Newland Archer knows what people expect of him and is eager to comply. The first step on the path to happiness is to wed May Welland, a beautiful young woman of fine social standing. But the arrival of the worldly and exotic Countess Olenska, May's cousin, changes everything. Ellen Olenska's scandalous intention to divorce her husband, a Polish nobleman, is so far outside the realm of Newland's experience that he cannot help but be fascinated by her, and by the independence she represents. As he draws closer to the irresistible countess, he risks breaking May's heart and destroying his life of privilege forever. Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - marking the very first time a woman was so honored - and the basis for several film and stage adaptations, including the 1993 Academy Award-winning motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese, The Age of Innocence is one of the best-loved American novels of the twentieth century.
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Reviews
"Wharton's graceful sentences create dramatic, populous tableaux and peel back layer after layer of artifice and pretense, of what we say and how we wish to appear, revealing the hidden kernel of what human beings are like, alone and together."
Francine Prose
"There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska."
Gore Vidal