The Age of Innocence

The Age of InnocenceEdith WhartonUpper-class New York gentleman Newland Archer is set to wed May Welland in a picture-perfect union when the bride's cousin, Ellen Olenska, returns from a failed marriage overseas. As Newland endeavors to help Countess Olenska be reinstated into the family's good graces, his affections for her grow. Newland soon finds himself torn between his desire to conform to the society he knows and his new-found passion for the forbidden Countess.The Age of Innocence was originally published in 1920 as a four-part series in Pictoral Review, then later that same year as Wharton's twelfth novel. It went on to win the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the award. The Age of Innocence is a novel by American author Edith Wharton, published on 25 October 1920. It was her eighth novel, and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine Pictorial Review. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Appleton & Company. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. Though the committee had initially agreed to give the award to Sinclair Lewis for Main Street, the judges, in rejecting his book on political grounds, "established Wharton as the American 'First Lady of Letters'".The story is set in the 1870s, in upper-class, "Gilded Age" New York City. Wharton wrote the book in her 50s, after she was already established as a major author in high demand by publishers.