The Age of Innocence
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Paperback
Book Details
Written by Edith Wharton and Stephen Orgel.
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Editorial Review (from Amazon.com)
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton's most famous novel, is a love story, written immediately after the end of the First World War. Its brilliant anatomization of the snobbery and hypocrisy of the wealthy elite of New York society in the 1870s made it an instant classic, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. Newland Archer, Wharton's protagonist, charming, tactful, enlightened, is a thorough product of this society; he accepts its standards and abides by its rules but he also recognizes its limitations. His engagement to the impeccable May Welland assures him of a safe and conventional future, until the arrival of May's cousin Ellen Olenska. Independent, free-thinking, scandalously separated from her husband, Ellen forces Archer to question the values and assumptions of his narrow world. As their love for each other grows, Archer has to decide where his ultimate loyalty lies.Stephen Orgel's introduction and notes set the novel in the context of the period and discusses Wharton's skilfull weaving of characters and plot, her anthropological exactitude, and the novel's autobiographical overtones.
User Reviews (2) Login or create an account to write a review.
Amy Miller Burgess thinks this book is Bad.
Man I hate this book. Bored, rich, emotionally constipated white people. I mean, really. As I read aobut these idiots and looking at each other longingly over their fluttering fans and asphixiating corsets of 19th century New York, I was thinking about the immigrants not a few miles away living in horrible slums dying of diseases and extreme violence in the slums. Gimme a break, really. And while you're at it, gimme a better book.
Mari thinks this book is Excellent.
This era of literature is not one of my favorites, but this is one I'd read again. There is a lot of psychological drama; the characters seem very present, their struggles very real. In a way, it was a horrible book...horrible to think of the choices they were making, ruining their lives. But it was wonderfully written.