The Age of Innocence
by:
Edith Wharton (author)
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is an elegant, masterful portrait of desire and betrayal in old New York. 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...
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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. 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.
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Format: audiobook
ISBN:
9781855494411 (1855494418)
Publisher: Chivers
Edition language: English
In the course of reading "The Age of Innocence", I sometimes just forgot that it plays in the late 19th century, because its plot and main characters somehow seem to fit contemporary views just like they would 19th-century morals. I truly enjoyed Edith Wharton's novel and ironic style of writing.
I knew this book was a classic, but not that it was a romance. I went in not knowing what to expect and came out liking the book in general; however, it was difficult for me at times. First, I had no idea how snooty and shallow New York society was at the turn of the 20th century. I can understand...
The Age of Innocence is the third book in Wharton's loosely-linked cycle focused on upper class New York of the 1870's (the other two books are The House of Mirth, published in 1905, and The Custom of the Country, published in 1913). She's writing from a distance, looking backward between 30 and 50 ...
Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man. Conformity to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second nature. Until the arrival of Countess Olenska. The novel takes place in the late nineteenth century where the American gilded age was developing in the New York...
Scorsese's version of this book is, in my opinion, one of his very best films and on the short list of films I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand good direction. This despite Michelle Pfeiffer's supposedly miscast as the female lead. Perhaps my love for the film version is what made me ...
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