The age Of Innocence (Readings Classics)

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s elegant and incisive portrait of passion restrained by social convention. Set in the upper-class circles of 1870s New York, the novel follows Newland Archer, a well-bred young lawyer engaged to the beautiful and proper May Welland. His ordered world begins to unravel with the return of Countess Ellen Olenska—May’s unconventional cousin—who has fled a scandalous marriage in Europe. Ellen’s independence, intelligence, and disregard for societal norms challenge everything Newland thought he desired. Torn between duty and desire, he finds himself at a crossroads where every choice comes at a cost. With sharp wit and emotional depth, Wharton explores the quiet devastations of lives lived within rigid expectations. A timeless study of love, sacrifice, and lost possibilities, The Age of Innocence captures both the elegance and the suffocating constraints of a world governed by appearances.