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Book Cover for: The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton

The Age of Innocence

Edith Wharton

When the Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe, fleeing her brutish husband, her rebellious independence and passionate awareness of life stir the educated sensitivity of Newland Archer, already engaged to be married to her cousin May Welland, "that terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything." As the consequent drama unfolds, Edith Wharton's sharp ironic wit and Jamesian mastery of form create a disturbingly accurate picture of men and women caught in a society that denies humanity while desperately defending "civilization."

Book Details

  • Publisher: Scribner Book Company
  • Publish Date: Mar 4th, 1998
  • Pages: 384
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 7.98in - 5.38in - 0.85in - 0.71lb
  • EAN: 9780684842370
  • Categories: ClassicsLiterary

About the Author

Wharton, Edith: - Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was an American novelist--the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921--as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York's elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.
Toibin, Colm: - Colm Tóibín is the author of eleven novels, including Long Island, an Oprah's Book Club Pick; The Magician, winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize; The Master, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; Brooklyn, winner of the Costa Book Award; and Nora Webster; as well as two story collections and several books of criticism. He is the Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and was named the 2022-2024 Laureate for Irish Fiction by the Arts Council of Ireland. He was shortlisted three times for the Booker Prize. He was also awarded the Bodley Medal, the Würth Prize for European Literature, and the Prix Femina spécial for his body of work.

Praise for this book

Praise for The Age of Innocence
"The first time I read [The Age of Innocence], when I was finished, I held it to my chest and thought, 'I want to write like this.'"--Roxane Gay "Entertainment Weekly"
"The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, gets romance right. It gets love right and it's grounded and it's beautiful. It's deeply moving."--Ta-Nehisi Coates "Interview"
"I generally try to avoid honorifics like 'best novel ever' or 'greatest American novel' and so on. But The Age of Innocence really is quite incredible, and, at the moment, I consider it the best novel I've ever read...it's a great book executed by a writer at the top of her game."--Ta-Nehisi Coates "The Atlantic"
Praise for Edith Wharton
"Edith Wharton is my favorite writer and her incisive indictments of the wealthy class she was a part of, are endlessly interesting to me. I also love her gorgeous descriptions."--Roxane Gay "Medium"
"What I love about Wharton--the Wharton who wrote The Age of Innocence--is her empathy and ambivalence."--Ta-Nehisi Coates "The Atlantic"
"Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."--Gore Vidal
"Edith Wharton was there before all of us; disdainful, imperious, brilliant foremother."--Francesca Segal "The Millions"
"Only a few works of fiction can reasonably be called 'perfect, ' and [Wharton's Ethan Frome] is one of them. There's a crystalline purity to the prose, and a wintry sadness in the story. It gets deep in your bones."--Tom Perrotta "Vulture"
"There are only three or four American novelists who can be thought of as 'major, ' and Edith Wharton is one."--Gore Vidal
"It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and...a permanent addition to literature."--New York Times Book Review "October 17, 1920"