The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, Dr Keith Carabine

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in upper class New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin, who has been living in Europe. This novel won the first ever Pulitzer awarded to a woman. Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's combination of powerful prose combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920. In 1921 The Age of Innocence achieved a double distinction - it won the Pulitzer Prize and it was the first time this prestigious award had been won by a woman author. Editorial Reviews Review An exquisite delight . . . A consummate work of art. . . . New York society and customs in the seventies are described with an accuracy that is almost uncanny; to read these pages is to live again . . . The love scenes between [Newland] and Ellen are wonderful in their terrible, inarticulate passion; it is curious how much more real they are than the unrestrained detailed descriptions thought by so many writers to be 'realism' . . . So little is said, so little is done, yet one feels the infinite passion in the finite hearts that burn. . . . The appearance of such a book as THE AGE OF INNOCENCE by an American is a matter for public rejoicing. It is one of the best novels of the twentieth century and looks like a permanent addition to literature. --The New York Times Book Review October 17, 1920 THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is a masterly achievement. In lonely contrast to almost all the novelists who write about fashionable New York, [Wharton] knows her world. . . . [Her] triumph is that she had described these rites and surfaces and burdens as familiarly as if she loved them and as lucidly as if she hated them. --The Nation, November 3, 1920 Mrs. Wharton opens to life a free and swinging door . . . The 'best people' are, after all, a trite subject for the analyst, but in this novel Mrs. Wharton has shown them to be, for her, a superb subject. She has made of them a clear, composed, rounded work of art . . . She has preserved a given period in her amber--a pale, pure amber that has living light. --The New Republic, November 17, 1920 From the Inside Flap Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in upper class New York City. Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the sheltered and beautiful May Welland. Yet he finds reason to doubt his choice of bride after the appearance of Countess Ellen Olenska, May's exotic, beautiful 30-year-old cousin, who has been living in Europe. This novel won the first ever Pulitzer awarded to a woman. Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's combination of powerful prose combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920. In 1921 The Age of Innocence achieved a double distinction - it won the Pulitzer Prize and it was the first time this prestigious award had been won by a woman author. About the Author Edith Wharton (born Edith Newbold Jones) was born on the 24 January 1862 to parents George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. The saying Keeping up with the Joneses is said to refer to the family of her father. In 1885, when she was 23 years old, Edith married Edward (Teddy) Robbins Wharton, who was twelve years her senior. Teddy shared her love of travel, but they had little in common intellectually. His tendency to spend money on younger women began to take its toll on Wharton s mental health and they divorced in 1913 after he suffered a nervous breakdown and was confined to a hospital. Edith combined her insider s view of America s privileged classes with a brilliant, natural wit, to write humorous and incisive novels and short stories. Besides her writing, Wharton was highly regarded as a landscape architect and interior designer. In 1902, Edith built The Mount, her estate in Massachusetts, which survives today as the supreme example of her design principles. It has since been converted into a museum. Whilst living at The Mount, she wrote several of her novels, including The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920), The Ghost Stories were published in 1937. After her divorce from Teddy, Edith moved permanently to France, returning to the United States only once after World War l to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1923. During WWI, Wharton contributed greatly to charitable efforts for refugees including setting up workrooms for unemployed Frenchwomen, organising concerts to provide work for musicians, opening tuberculosis hospitals and founding the American Hostels for Belgian refugees. For her efforts, she was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1916. Also in 1916, Wharton edited The Book of the Homeless, composed of writings, art and musical scores by almost every major contemporary European artist. After the war, she divided her time between Paris and Providence, where she finished The Age of Innocence in 1920. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1921, making her the first woman to win the award. She spoke flawless French as well as several other languages and many of her books were published in both French and English. Wharton continued writing until her death, lying in bed and dropping each finished page to the floor to be collected when she finished. On 11th August 1937, in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, France, she suffered a stroke and died at the age of 75. The street on which she was living at her time of death is today called Rue Edith Wharton. She is buried in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France. Wharton s last novel, The Buccaneers, was unfinished at the time of her death. Marion Mainwaring finished the story after carefully studying the notes and synopsis Wharton had previously written. The novel was published unfinished in 1938, with Mainwaring s completed version published 55 years later in 1993.