The Age of Innocence (1920) by Edith Wharton (1862 – 1937) is considered one of this classic American author’s finest works. In 1921, it earned Wharton the distinction as the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

The story is set in the 1870s and centers on Newland Archer, an upper-class New Yorker. Archer’s conflicted desires between duty to his staid but loving wife and his passion for scandal-plagued divorcée Countess Ellen Olenska are central to the narrative. The overarching conflict explored by the novel is the extent to which an individual should allow the rules of society to overrule what the heart desires. Read More→