The Age of Innocence
The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton's twelfth novel, initially serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine in 1920, and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. Though the committee agreed to award the prize to Sinclair Lewis, the judges rejected his Main Street on political grounds and "established Wharton as the American 'First Lady of Letters'", the irony being that the committee had awarded The Age of Innocence the prize on grounds that negated Wharton's own blatant and subtle ironies, which constitute and make the book so worthy of attention. The story is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s, during the Gilded Age. Wharton wrote the book in her 50s, after she had established herself as a strong author with publishers clamoring for her work.
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Community Reviews
(Don't know why it took me so long to finally read this book, but totally different story than what I thought it was...)
I wish we could have spent some time with the two leading women, Ellen & May, rather than just with the feckless Newland Archer. Still, it's an absorbing story, and well told.
Newland Archer to my mind is one of the wimpiest, most wishy washy characters I have ever read about. Also, the coincidence of the tutor of Mrs. Archer's English friends being Count Olenska's secretary is an awfully big one to swallow.
I read this in high school for a class and loved it. It was so outside of what I normally read I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
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