The Age of Innocence

By: Edith Wharton

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Paperback | 4 March 1998 | Edition Number 1

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384 Pages

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1.8 x 13.3 x 20.3

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Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is an elegant, masterful portrait of desire and betrayal in old New York—now with a new introduction from acclaimed author Colm Tóibín for the novel’s centennial.

With vivid power, Wharton evokes a time of gaslit streets, formal dances held in the ballrooms of stately brownstones, and society people "who dreaded scandal more than disease." This is Newland Archer's world as he prepares to many the docile May Welland. Then, suddenly, the mysterious, intensely nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a long absence, turning Archer's world upside down.

This classic Wharton tale of thwarted love is an exuberantly comic and profoundly moving look at the passions of the human heart, as well as a literary achievement of the highest order.

About the Author

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. 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.

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About This Series	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
A Note on the Text	p. 10
The Age of Innocence	p. 11
Background Readings	p. 287
Questions of Culture	p. 289
From "The Metropolitan Gentry: Culture against Politics"	p. 289
From "The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy"	p. 294
From "Democratic Vistas"	p. 300
From "Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art"	p. 303
"The Location and Decoration of Houses in The Age of Innocence"	p. 318
From How the Other Half Lives	p. 332
Marriage and Divorce	p. 338
From Domestic Revolutions	p. 338
From "For the Wedding Night"	p. 345
Travel and Sport	p. 348
From the Introduction to American Travel Writers, 1850-1915	p. 349
From "Americans Abroad"	p. 355
From "Newport"	p. 357
From "The Lawn Set"	p. 359
Anthropology	p. 364
From Violence and the Sacred	p. 364
From Primitive Culture	p. 366
Other Writings	p. 369
Writing The Age of Innocence	p. 371
The Ways of Old New York	p. 372
The Childishness of American Women	p. 378
"The Valley of Childish Things"	p. 380
Winning the Pulitizer Prize	p. 381
Critical Readings	p. 385
From "The Composition of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence"	p. 387
From "Cool Diana and the Blood-Red Muse: Edith Wharton on Innocence and Art"	p. 393
From "Becoming the Mask: Edith Wharton's Ingenues"	p. 404
From "Angel of Devastation: Edith Wharton on the Arts of the Enslaved"	p. 408
From "The Age of Innocence and the Bohemian Peril"	p. 411
From "Edith Wharton: The Archeological Motive"	p. 414
From "'Hunting for the Real': Wharton and the Science of Manners"	p. 418
From "A Note on Wharton's Use of Faust"	p. 430
From "The Mind in Chains: Public Plots and Personal Fables"	p. 432
From "American Naturalism in Its 'Perfected' State: The Age of Innocence and An American Tragedy"	p. 434
From "The Scorses Interview: On Filming The Age of Innocence"	p. 441
"Of Writers and Class: In Praise of Edith Wharton"	p. 448
Works Cited	p. 454
For Further Reading	p. 455
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

The Age of Innocence

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