The Age of Innocence

While radical for its time, this novel now seems somewhat superficial and dated. The main characters are more two-rather than three-dimensional. The international theme, the conflict between American and European values, is not well developed. Compared to a Henry James novel, such as The Ambassadors,

that deals with the international theme, The Age of Innocence, functions on a lesser level.

i struggled to read the novel since it was copied pages of the book. i wasn't able to enjoy the story because of the limitations of enlarging the print. where it would stay enlarged. also the vocabulary/dictionary feature could not be used. did not complete the read.

A depressing story which hit too close to home for me to find enjoyable. How is this one of the "100 Books You Must Read Before You Die" ? I could not at all identify with the affluent lifestyle of the characters, nor with their huge self-absorption.

I felt that Edith Wharton got a bit carried away with her descriptions of all the angst poor Archer was going through. Instead of waiting with bated breath (or any other kind of breath) for the next "action" I felt I was slogging through a huge vat of treacle!
I guess I did not quite enjoy this book the "Everyone should read before they die" as you advertised it!

This book has less pages than some of the other "The Age of Innocence" books. It was because the book was a little larger and the print smaller. This book was for my son to read for school, so when he saw less pages, he was happy. And, love to see him happy. Would order from this seller again.

i struggled to read the novel since it was copied pages of the book. i wasn't able to enjoy the story because of the limitations of enlarging the print. where it would stay enlarged. also the vocabulary/dictionary feature could not be used. did not complete the read.

A depressing story which hit too close to home for me to find enjoyable. How is this one of the "100 Books You Must Read Before You Die" ? I could not at all identify with the affluent lifestyle of the characters, nor with their huge self-absorption.

I felt that Edith Wharton got a bit carried away with her descriptions of all the angst poor Archer was going through. Instead of waiting with bated breath (or any other kind of breath) for the next "action" I felt I was slogging through a huge vat of treacle!
I guess I did not quite enjoy this book the "Everyone should read before they die" as you advertised it!

This book has less pages than some of the other "The Age of Innocence" books. It was because the book was a little larger and the print smaller. This book was for my son to read for school, so when he saw less pages, he was happy. And, love to see him happy. Would order from this seller again.

So like most folks I saw the movie before I read the book so couldn't get the visuals out of my head...but what are ya gonna do?

Here's what I discovered in doing the inevitable comparison between the novel and the film: Over two hours the story is compelling and issues important. But when Wharton's narrative is read over several more hours than a film takes the watch, I couldn't care less about these folks.

Yeah, sorry that your rich and constrained by your ephemeral tradition....but who cares?

What put me off in the novel was the way these characters floated above New York in their fine linens and polished shoes without ever getting the dirty of normal human life on them. Not a single service person was anything other than a prop. Only in the final chapter was anything of the times touched on. It did remind me of Jane Austen writing all those novels during the Napoleonic wars and not once mentioning them. But at least with Austen their middle-classness was often at stake. There seemed to be a fear of slipping into poverty or disrepute.

Not in The Age of Innocence. The worst thing that could happen? Not much. They'll go on being rich and attending balls and the opera. Sorry for the slight disappointment in life.

I gave this four stars because Wharton can obviously compel a reader forward on her prose because I couldn't care less about the story. Also, the final chapter is perhaps the finest final chapter I've ever read in a novel. It is a quiet and wistful chapter full of reflection and regret yet contentment. Much like many men I presume feel in their 50s - or now probably older - looking back on the paths not taken.

This version is a terrible publication. The book is too wide making it difficult to keep track of place from line to line. The layout is off with a very small space at the top of the page compared to the bottom and the margins are too small! Really disappointed!

This is not a criticism of the novel, but this particular version is missing several pages scattered throughout the text. It is extremely annoying when you try to read it. I would buy a different version.

Bought this for Mom for her book club. 10
women ranging in age from 60-90.
They all hated it. The comments were, "draggy, boring, too much time spent on setting the stage of the era and not telling an interesting story, waste of time and $". Old people are painfully honest.

I know this is a classic but it was painful to get through. none of the characters were the least bit likable. And I kept thinking at least they'd have an affair which would have been interesting. Never happened. Then the ending. PLEASE! Aaaahhhh read for my book club wouldn't recommend this to anyone. The only good thing was I got it for free.

I can not comment on the contents of the book itself because the printing had so many errors and mistakes that it was impossible to read. I don't know what happened, but this should not have been offered for purchase in its current condition. A real ripoff and not worthy to be called a Kindle offering.

I didn't really care for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. I know it's a bit older and clunky and it's probably directed more towards a turn-of-the-twentieth century female audience than me, but I really wasn't impressed. YMMV.

I can not comment on the contents of the book itself because the printing had so many errors and mistakes that it was impossible to read. I don't know what happened, but this should not have been offered for purchase in its current condition. A real ripoff and not worthy to be called a Kindle offering.

I didn't really care for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. I know it's a bit older and clunky and it's probably directed more towards a turn-of-the-twentieth century female audience than me, but I really wasn't impressed. YMMV.

This was not my favorite Edith Wharton story, but it was enjoyable. The characters were real to me and that made me like them.

My favorite Edith Wharton's, should anyone out there care, are Summer and Custom of the Country.

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I do not want to rate this at this time. I would like the option to comment if I feel strongly about it one way or the other.

This company's name makes you think it is located in the US but it is not. I had to wait quite a while for the book and it arrived with a customs sticker on it. They should tell people that the book is coming from far away so someone can make an informed decision as to whether to order from this company.

Young attorney Newland Archer is engaged to the lovely May Welland and feeling entitled to a life consumed with all the comforts and rituals that his family’s circle of wealthy New Yorkers enjoy. At the turn of the twentieth century, appropriateness in dress, manners, marriages, and relationships is everything. Straying from the fold is not only frowned upon but will turn one into a social outcast, which has happened to May’s cousin Ellen who married a European Count then left him with the help of another man. Countess Olenska’s unconventional attitude appeals to Newland immensely, especially since he’s begun to wonder if marriage to a woman who doesn’t question anything or think for herself might be a tad unsatisfying. The more he ponders this, the more intrigued becomes with the countess. Soon, he questions his entire life.

While the story of snobbish people living useless lives wouldn’t normally interest me, the fact that Edith Wharton wrote it and won a Pulitzer prize for her novel does. I understand why the novel earned such high praise. Wharton writes with the same mild undertone of amusement and mockery that Austen did with Pride and Prejudice, yet Wharton’s subtle layers of cynicism and despondency give the story an edgy feel at times. The conflict between expectation and following one’s heart is beautifully portrayed through Newland’s anguish and regrets.

Despite my hesitancy over the subject matter, I enjoyed this novel. Admittedly, there were far too many characters growing pale during those awkward moments when something is said that shouldn’t be, but what else could they do when outbursts just weren’t done in those days? Having said that, I do believe that the quality of Wharton’s writing still holds up to today’s literary authors.

I have no idea why this is a classic. There is no depth to the characters and I found myself not caring what happened to them. The story of their lives was boring. I finished and said to myself, "So?" Glad it was short!

It is impossible for me to rate Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence because the text of the novel wasn't transmitted; only the title page came through. Because the price was nominal, I didn't submit a complaint.

I'll be honest. The only reason I purchased this book is because it is required reading for my daughters 10th grade AP English class. I don't know (or care, frankly) whether this book is any good or not. I do hope my daughter gets a good grade though:).

I knew the style of writing would be very different from current literature. But I don't know how this won the Pulitzer. It is a long drawn out version of lusting for someone unattainable. ugh I made myself read it but it was grueling.

This book was terrible. and I'm not one to hate books. I'm a lover of books, especially the classics. However, this book to me was dry, bland, and boring. It moved along very slowly. Fans of Jane Austen will enjoy this- another author that doesn't fit my style.

Almost 20 years after reading the depressing "Ethan Frome," did I realize that Edith Wharton is not just a good author of classic literature but that she's really perceptive and funny. Her wit is at the very least on par with Jane Austen -- though she takes a decidedly sharper, less empathetic approach to her characters than Jane.

The first couple of chapters have a lot of zingers - for example:

"... an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English- speaking audiences."

And then a description of Mrs Mingott starts off as

"The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon."

Doomed city? Oh, that's hilarious! Right? Edith Wharton creates complex and very human characters who aren't always conscious of just how silly their lives might seem. They seem to take these things all very seriously. Newland holds the conflicting beliefs that women are equals and should be able to do things but continues to support the very heteronormative sex roles ascribed to women in marriage, blind even to his fiancees perceptiveness, emotional control and cleverness.

There are some very strong women in this story - and yet they seem to stay more or less stuck within the confines of social convention. Countess Olenska leaves her husband - who refuses to grant her a divorce - but doesn't want to give up her lifestyle (or her money, which he will keep if they divorce anyway).

Even Mrs Mingott defies conventions -- she's created a body that permits her to step outside of conventions (having her bedroom on the first floor and receiving guests there, not going to opera but sending family representatives instead, having her house in a less fashionable area and making people go to visit her there) -- proving that there is some fluidity but keeping appearances "proper" is key to avoiding scandal that will result in the kind of rapid, spiraling downward mobility such as that experienced by the protagonist of "The House of Mirth."

May Welland knows how to play the game - very well - she is a sharp cookie, and she gets her marriage to the "right" man - getting him to give up what might have been his one true love, and establishing such a powerful sense of duty and obligation that even after her death, while he's still young enough to marry again - he refuses to even visit Ellen. Even as social conventions were changing in a whirl all around him, Newland was unable to pursue his happiness to do the right thing, upon which the happiness of many others was contingent.

Whether it was weakness or strength that Newland abandoned any thought of leaving May and went through with the wedding, marriage and family - in the end, does it matter?

Even in "Women in Love" - it seems like despite the characters' ability to choose what they would, they didn't find happiness. Truly, it makes me wonder whether any of what passes for "love" in any of these late 19th/early 20th c novels is actually love or just a strong drive to defy one's environment, conventions and try on something different - if just for a little while - before settling into what is expected.

Edith Wharton’s 1921 novel, ‘The Age of Innocence’, can be seen in one way as an anthropological profile of a highly structured society that no longer existed in the same way it had during the ‘gilded age’. Even the flash forward at the end of the novel has to be at least 20 years earlier than the time in which it was written so it definitely qualifies as a historical novel.

The society Wharton writes about is the time in which she spent her childhood so these characters are the adults of that time. She knew her subject matter very well, having grown up in it observing it from within as well as without in the years in which, like her fellow expatriate writer Henry James, she wrote about America from the vantage point of European residency.

At the center of this world of Old New York is a young lawyer, Newland Archer. Newland may have private reservations about some of the customs and attitudes prevalent in his world although he has always stored those safely in the closet of his mind while outwardly conforming to the expectations of his peers. At the beginning is he unofficially engaged to May Welland, a young flower of New York womanhood, who is everything her society expects her to be without question. She is a creature of convention and, therefore, a likely match for Newland and their marriage will be viewed as a welcome union of two old, prosperous families of New York. As Wharton the narrator says:
“…they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”

Into this world enters an alien element. Recently separated from her abusive European husband, Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin, has returned to the bosom of her family and friends, hoping for safety and a restoration of order. Having spent much of her life abroad, however, Ellen is not very familiar with the expectations of behavior so rigidly and silently enforced in her native society. This foreign aspect of her, as well as a different brand of beauty from that of May, intrigues Newland and quickly leads him into a very inconvenient infatuation with her. As a junior partner in the family law firm, he is appointed to advise her regarding whether she should divorce her husband. As his senior partner Mr. Letterblair tells Newland, “She’s here…he’s there,” so why stir up a transatlantic scandal that is bound to reflect on her future reputation?

However, Newland has already prepared himself to be her knight in shining armor, rescuing her from the clutches of an abusive villain of a husband. He understands Ellen’s position and his infatuation further solidifies his attitude. She has already unknowingly violated some of those customs such as at a dinner party getting up to walk away from one gentleman to seek the company of another and consulting the known philanderer Julius Beaufort, walking unattended with him as he advises her on possible houses to move to. Newland is quickly heedless of such consideration in his own case and believes he is being subtle in his surreptitious wooing of Ellen.

Frightened by the extent of his growing love for Ellen, he urges May to persuade her mother to move up the date of their wedding, thinking he will be safe from temptation within the boundaries of wedded bliss. The wedding does occur, but his interest in Countess Olenska does not wane. In fact, it increases as he pricks up his ears at anything regarding her and what she is now deciding or, more to the point, what is decided for her.

The intrigues and counter-intrigues of Newland’s maneuverings around the truth e.g., telling May he has to be in Washington because of a pending patent case because Ellen is in Washington, then quickly inventing a new cover for why he is going even though the original cover story is blown as the patent case has been postponed—all of these have to be obvious to the not so oblivious as she seems May and the elders of their ‘tribe’.

The stresses of Newland’s and Ellen’s private melodrama must find relief at some point and reach a culmination in a farewell dinner that Newland and May give for Ellen. After her family has cut off her financial support after her refusal to return to Europe on generous terms offered by her husband who has promised to let her live apart from him, the family reversed their original attitude and promised to support her living abroad with another relative. At the dinner, the severance of Newland and Ellen’s relationship is thoroughly completed in a bloodless process, all done through an unspoken condemnation concealed beneath a veneer of polite pleasantries. Newland realizes he has been a caged bird that has frantically searched for an exit; his fate has been decided for him almost invisibly.

The poignance of the love and subsequent loss between Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska is delineated by their doomed rebellion against the arbitrary morals and manners of the society that Wharton knew all too well and yet was able to anatomize with deft precision. More so than her friend Henry James, Wharton is a chronicler of a specific society. James often wrote about many of the same kinds of characters and yet he was more preoccupied with the nuances of human behavior than the customs which his characters were required to obey. Wharton is more akin to the French novelists Zola and Balzac in this sense. The environment in which a character must live and operate is just as important to these writers as any internal conflict they may undergo.

Aside from her spot-on portrayal of a society, Wharton’s creation of Newland Archer is perhaps the most convincing portrayal of a male character by a female author that I am aware of. We are inside Newland’s head from start to finish just as thoroughly as any of James’ male characters. I contend that if I read ‘The Age of Innocence’ without knowing who wrote it I would have naturally assumed the author to be a man.

‘The Age of Innocence’ represents a novelist at the peak of her powers depicting the society with which she was intimately familiar. The ‘innocence’ of this society may have been lost after the gilded age encountered the destruction of World War I; however, the innocence of one man, Newland Archer, was lost on the day when he met a beautiful countess who posed a threat to his insulated world view and overturned it just through her natural otherness.

With all the wealth Newland Archer had, you'd think he could do and have anything he wanted and be happy. Surprisingly that's not the case as the high society to which he belongs has strict rules. Wharton depicts the old code of the New York elite in the 1870's, of manners, behaviors, customs, and the "correct" and "proper" ways to live one's life.

To be honest, Newland isn't that interesting. He's a privileged man who goes to the law office to shuffle papers, later to join his friends at the Club or attend the Opera. His fiancee, May Welland, is even more uninteresting. She's been so sheltered and insulated that she's little more than a grown-up child. Newland realizes this, but is betrothed to her anyway because she's beautiful and connected to one of the elite families. Trouble arises when May's divorced cousin, Countess Olenska, arrives. Newland and she fall in love and it's the only passion in his otherwise dull life.

Memorable scenes for me were all of Newland and Ellen's encounters. I especially loved when Newland's eyelashes froze in the winter night and he realized they were tears. I also liked their last encounter in the Museum looking at relics that used to be important to someone, but are now artifacts.

I suspected that May knew more than she was letting on. Even though she was inexperienced, she did have women's intuition that something was up between Newland and Ellen. In her final and private conversation with Ellen, she knew she was putting the last nail in the coffin between her husband and Ellen.

I didn't know how it was all going to end and was both surprised and saddened when Newland walked away without meeting Ellen again. He wasn't the same person he was thirty years ago and, for all he knew, Ellen had changed as well. Moreover, he had become what he feared which was a man like May's father.

I have no idea why this is a classic. There is no depth to the characters and I found myself not caring what happened to them. The story of their lives was boring. I finished and said to myself, "So?" Glad it was short!

It is impossible for me to rate Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence because the text of the novel wasn't transmitted; only the title page came through. Because the price was nominal, I didn't submit a complaint.

I'll be honest. The only reason I purchased this book is because it is required reading for my daughters 10th grade AP English class. I don't know (or care, frankly) whether this book is any good or not. I do hope my daughter gets a good grade though:).

I knew the style of writing would be very different from current literature. But I don't know how this won the Pulitzer. It is a long drawn out version of lusting for someone unattainable. ugh I made myself read it but it was grueling.

This book was terrible. and I'm not one to hate books. I'm a lover of books, especially the classics. However, this book to me was dry, bland, and boring. It moved along very slowly. Fans of Jane Austen will enjoy this- another author that doesn't fit my style.

Almost 20 years after reading the depressing "Ethan Frome," did I realize that Edith Wharton is not just a good author of classic literature but that she's really perceptive and funny. Her wit is at the very least on par with Jane Austen -- though she takes a decidedly sharper, less empathetic approach to her characters than Jane.

The first couple of chapters have a lot of zingers - for example:

"... an unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English- speaking audiences."

And then a description of Mrs Mingott starts off as

"The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump active little woman with a neatly-turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon."

Doomed city? Oh, that's hilarious! Right? Edith Wharton creates complex and very human characters who aren't always conscious of just how silly their lives might seem. They seem to take these things all very seriously. Newland holds the conflicting beliefs that women are equals and should be able to do things but continues to support the very heteronormative sex roles ascribed to women in marriage, blind even to his fiancees perceptiveness, emotional control and cleverness.

There are some very strong women in this story - and yet they seem to stay more or less stuck within the confines of social convention. Countess Olenska leaves her husband - who refuses to grant her a divorce - but doesn't want to give up her lifestyle (or her money, which he will keep if they divorce anyway).

Even Mrs Mingott defies conventions -- she's created a body that permits her to step outside of conventions (having her bedroom on the first floor and receiving guests there, not going to opera but sending family representatives instead, having her house in a less fashionable area and making people go to visit her there) -- proving that there is some fluidity but keeping appearances "proper" is key to avoiding scandal that will result in the kind of rapid, spiraling downward mobility such as that experienced by the protagonist of "The House of Mirth."

May Welland knows how to play the game - very well - she is a sharp cookie, and she gets her marriage to the "right" man - getting him to give up what might have been his one true love, and establishing such a powerful sense of duty and obligation that even after her death, while he's still young enough to marry again - he refuses to even visit Ellen. Even as social conventions were changing in a whirl all around him, Newland was unable to pursue his happiness to do the right thing, upon which the happiness of many others was contingent.

Whether it was weakness or strength that Newland abandoned any thought of leaving May and went through with the wedding, marriage and family - in the end, does it matter?

Even in "Women in Love" - it seems like despite the characters' ability to choose what they would, they didn't find happiness. Truly, it makes me wonder whether any of what passes for "love" in any of these late 19th/early 20th c novels is actually love or just a strong drive to defy one's environment, conventions and try on something different - if just for a little while - before settling into what is expected.

Edith Wharton’s 1921 novel, ‘The Age of Innocence’, can be seen in one way as an anthropological profile of a highly structured society that no longer existed in the same way it had during the ‘gilded age’. Even the flash forward at the end of the novel has to be at least 20 years earlier than the time in which it was written so it definitely qualifies as a historical novel.

The society Wharton writes about is the time in which she spent her childhood so these characters are the adults of that time. She knew her subject matter very well, having grown up in it observing it from within as well as without in the years in which, like her fellow expatriate writer Henry James, she wrote about America from the vantage point of European residency.

At the center of this world of Old New York is a young lawyer, Newland Archer. Newland may have private reservations about some of the customs and attitudes prevalent in his world although he has always stored those safely in the closet of his mind while outwardly conforming to the expectations of his peers. At the beginning is he unofficially engaged to May Welland, a young flower of New York womanhood, who is everything her society expects her to be without question. She is a creature of convention and, therefore, a likely match for Newland and their marriage will be viewed as a welcome union of two old, prosperous families of New York. As Wharton the narrator says:
“…they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.”

Into this world enters an alien element. Recently separated from her abusive European husband, Ellen Olenska, May’s cousin, has returned to the bosom of her family and friends, hoping for safety and a restoration of order. Having spent much of her life abroad, however, Ellen is not very familiar with the expectations of behavior so rigidly and silently enforced in her native society. This foreign aspect of her, as well as a different brand of beauty from that of May, intrigues Newland and quickly leads him into a very inconvenient infatuation with her. As a junior partner in the family law firm, he is appointed to advise her regarding whether she should divorce her husband. As his senior partner Mr. Letterblair tells Newland, “She’s here…he’s there,” so why stir up a transatlantic scandal that is bound to reflect on her future reputation?

However, Newland has already prepared himself to be her knight in shining armor, rescuing her from the clutches of an abusive villain of a husband. He understands Ellen’s position and his infatuation further solidifies his attitude. She has already unknowingly violated some of those customs such as at a dinner party getting up to walk away from one gentleman to seek the company of another and consulting the known philanderer Julius Beaufort, walking unattended with him as he advises her on possible houses to move to. Newland is quickly heedless of such consideration in his own case and believes he is being subtle in his surreptitious wooing of Ellen.

Frightened by the extent of his growing love for Ellen, he urges May to persuade her mother to move up the date of their wedding, thinking he will be safe from temptation within the boundaries of wedded bliss. The wedding does occur, but his interest in Countess Olenska does not wane. In fact, it increases as he pricks up his ears at anything regarding her and what she is now deciding or, more to the point, what is decided for her.

The intrigues and counter-intrigues of Newland’s maneuverings around the truth e.g., telling May he has to be in Washington because of a pending patent case because Ellen is in Washington, then quickly inventing a new cover for why he is going even though the original cover story is blown as the patent case has been postponed—all of these have to be obvious to the not so oblivious as she seems May and the elders of their ‘tribe’.

The stresses of Newland’s and Ellen’s private melodrama must find relief at some point and reach a culmination in a farewell dinner that Newland and May give for Ellen. After her family has cut off her financial support after her refusal to return to Europe on generous terms offered by her husband who has promised to let her live apart from him, the family reversed their original attitude and promised to support her living abroad with another relative. At the dinner, the severance of Newland and Ellen’s relationship is thoroughly completed in a bloodless process, all done through an unspoken condemnation concealed beneath a veneer of polite pleasantries. Newland realizes he has been a caged bird that has frantically searched for an exit; his fate has been decided for him almost invisibly.

The poignance of the love and subsequent loss between Newland Archer and Ellen Olenska is delineated by their doomed rebellion against the arbitrary morals and manners of the society that Wharton knew all too well and yet was able to anatomize with deft precision. More so than her friend Henry James, Wharton is a chronicler of a specific society. James often wrote about many of the same kinds of characters and yet he was more preoccupied with the nuances of human behavior than the customs which his characters were required to obey. Wharton is more akin to the French novelists Zola and Balzac in this sense. The environment in which a character must live and operate is just as important to these writers as any internal conflict they may undergo.

Aside from her spot-on portrayal of a society, Wharton’s creation of Newland Archer is perhaps the most convincing portrayal of a male character by a female author that I am aware of. We are inside Newland’s head from start to finish just as thoroughly as any of James’ male characters. I contend that if I read ‘The Age of Innocence’ without knowing who wrote it I would have naturally assumed the author to be a man.

‘The Age of Innocence’ represents a novelist at the peak of her powers depicting the society with which she was intimately familiar. The ‘innocence’ of this society may have been lost after the gilded age encountered the destruction of World War I; however, the innocence of one man, Newland Archer, was lost on the day when he met a beautiful countess who posed a threat to his insulated world view and overturned it just through her natural otherness.

With all the wealth Newland Archer had, you'd think he could do and have anything he wanted and be happy. Surprisingly that's not the case as the high society to which he belongs has strict rules. Wharton depicts the old code of the New York elite in the 1870's, of manners, behaviors, customs, and the "correct" and "proper" ways to live one's life.

To be honest, Newland isn't that interesting. He's a privileged man who goes to the law office to shuffle papers, later to join his friends at the Club or attend the Opera. His fiancee, May Welland, is even more uninteresting. She's been so sheltered and insulated that she's little more than a grown-up child. Newland realizes this, but is betrothed to her anyway because she's beautiful and connected to one of the elite families. Trouble arises when May's divorced cousin, Countess Olenska, arrives. Newland and she fall in love and it's the only passion in his otherwise dull life.

Memorable scenes for me were all of Newland and Ellen's encounters. I especially loved when Newland's eyelashes froze in the winter night and he realized they were tears. I also liked their last encounter in the Museum looking at relics that used to be important to someone, but are now artifacts.

I suspected that May knew more than she was letting on. Even though she was inexperienced, she did have women's intuition that something was up between Newland and Ellen. In her final and private conversation with Ellen, she knew she was putting the last nail in the coffin between her husband and Ellen.

I didn't know how it was all going to end and was both surprised and saddened when Newland walked away without meeting Ellen again. He wasn't the same person he was thirty years ago and, for all he knew, Ellen had changed as well. Moreover, he had become what he feared which was a man like May's father.

New land Archer lives in the rarified, mannered world of Old New York, where certain etiquette and conventions must always be followed. His life has been planned for him, and it is a secure one: a job in law, a pretty and gracious fiance, and a round of social events. Although he is not unhappy, he has vague longings for a life with fewer restraints and more adventure. His wife's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, seems to embody these desires, and he falls madly in love with her. This love lasts for years, although he only sees her a few times, and they never consummate their relationship. When he finally decides to follow her to Europe, the family unites to separate them. This book is a brilliant, sometimes funny expose of the superficial, silly behavior of the upper classes in Victorian-era New York. It is also the sad love triangle of two beautiful, intelligent women and the man who doesn't really know either one of them. History buffs will love the details of the time, and romantic fans will enjoy the love story.

Another Pulitzer Prize winner that surprised me with how much I enjoyed it. I'm not sure why I was surprised--I've read Wharton before and liked her, but in reading the summary of this book, I thought I had the plot and the characters all pegged from the beginning. I was wrong.

I listened to it on audio, and I thought the narrator did a fabulous job reading the characters to life. It was one of those books I couldn't wait to listen to. I don't know that I've really read a book about the NYC Elite back in the late 1800s, and it was fascinating to see the puritanical American ideals play out in "society". I thought the characters were all wonderfully drawn and incredibly sympathetic and interesting, and the pull between what is right, what is accepted/allowed, and what the heart wants was just so beautifully conveyed.

I thought the book ended the only way it could, and I was immensely satisfied. There is an epilogue of sorts, and while my first reaction to the very very end was one of disappointment, I know that was based more on a superficial desire for an ending that would not have served the book as well. I think the ending here was incredibly poignant and fitting, and this is the kind of book that will stay with me for awhile. Highly recommend!

Well Ms. Savage certainly knows how to end on a cliffhanger! In the sixth part to this seven part serial, we get to watch Branford become even more possessive and protective of his commoner queen after the betrayal is uncovered. But with one threat stopped, another is lurking in the shadows and this one might not be within the newly crowned King’s ability to stop.

I am loving this series, don’t get me wrong. I am hooked and invested in these characters. I even got over my issues with part five and the darn concubine! And although I can see the reality in the fiction, I can’t say that I won’t be diving into the final part of this series without a little fear of the worst. And I really, really (reallyreallyreallyreally) hope that my fears aren’t confirmed as we wrap up this series.

But part six was another highly addictive installment of this historical romance series and I want part seven right now, even if the stress will cause me to skip ahead to know the ending before starting.

In the 6th installment of Shay Savage’s Unexpected Circumstances series, Savage has provided a perfect set of circumstances and actions that prove just how contradictory the meanings of the word apprehension are:

Definitely 1: the faculty or act of apprehending or understanding; perception on a direct and immediate level.

This aptly applies to the discoveries that are made at the beginning of the story. People used Alexandra’s kindness against her and plotted to thwart any efforts made by the newly crowned King and Queen to protect Silverhelm, but now that Branford knows the truth, he’s promised to ensure his queen’s safety by no longer failing her or making mistakes that risk everything he loves.

This new information is a powerful weapon for both Branford and Alexandra because it shows them that there are very few people in and out of the kingdom who they can trust, which means that, hopefully, by relying on only themselves, they can once again focus on their relationship and command their kingdom to a secure order.

Definition 2: anticipation of adversity or misfortune; suspicion or fear of future trouble or evil.

Branford and Alexandra are still together and back to who they were to each other before people interfered with their lives, which means that the threats are not over. There are still those who hold power that look to acquire more and they do not feel that a Commoner Queen is worthy of her position, so there’s still adversity for Branford and Alexandra to face despite Branford’s pledge to protect her at all costs. That is not something that Branford can control and before the story is over, they, once again, find themselves fighting for their relationship…fighting for their kingdom…even fighting for their lives.

Shay Savage has woven quite the historical romance in her Unexpected Circumstances series. Heading into the final book, I have no idea how everything will play out, but what I do know is that Alexandra can hold her own regardless of what she faces and Branford will make anyone pay in blood who threatens his wife and his kingdom.

A complimentary copy was provided in exchange for an honest review.

4 Poison Apples

4 - "Only you... Ever..." Stars!

Part six The Apprehension, of Shay Savages’ Unexpected Circumstances series, deals with the aftermath of the revelations at the end of the previous novella. And to say Brandford is not happy would be a huge understatement.

We are at the stage in the proceedings now, where talking to much about the plot is likely to give away spoilers of things that have occurred in the previous installments, so I am going to keep that part of my review a little vague.

What stuck out most to me in this episode is the strength and confidence that Alexandra has now found within herself to take up the role of Brandford’s wife and her royal position. The situation with King Edgar, Princess Whitney and the potential war with Hadebrand is hanging in the balance in this one, especially in view of what came to light last time.

Revenge and retribution are the name of the game for Brandford, but what surprised me is that Alexandra was by his side each and every step of the way. Their love is now as strong as their bond, and as a couple they have just grown so much over the course of this series, Alexandra in strength and self-belief, and Brandford in humility and in opening himself up to emotions again.

"Seeing you like this… is all I really want in life. Just to see you smile-to be this… happy."

The cliffy to end all cliffies rounds this penultimate novella off, and Shay has literally left everything hanging in the balance. I cannot wait to see how this adventure ends with The Devastation due for release on 23rd August.

ARC generously provided by the author, and it was my absolute pleasure to provide the above honest review.

Conspiracies are uncovered, guilty parties are hunted down, and true colors are being shown in this sixth installment of the Unexpected Circumstances series.

Alexandra and Branford learn that the initial betrayal of Alexandra upon her first arrival in Silverhelm led to Branford’s involved kin seeking an alliance with Hadebrand. And although one of them has distanced herself from the crime, it will not be enough to spare her.

Learning of the treachery, Alexandra finds a thirst for blood within herself that she hadn’t expected. Once this is settled, she is determined to restore her marriage to what it was, and ensure Hadley is treated properly as well. Branford, for his part, is more determined than ever to protect his wife.

This book covers a greater time span than the previous ones, in that several months are glossed over between major action points. There is also more explicit violence in the aftermath of the conspiracy at Silverhelm’s court. The particular brand of violence is true to the time period, haunting and gruesome though it may be.

When Branford and Alexandra reconnect, it is also quite vigorously, which fits the desperation they both felt before and the relief they feel now. You cannot fault Branford for becoming even more overprotective than he already was, and Alexandra understand that. She welcomes his affections and attention, for she knows they come from his heart.

The book ends with another action-packed sequence, in which Alexandra learns just how far Hadebrand’s ambition goes, yet amidst the turmoil, she finds an unexpected ally. Now to just hold out long enough…

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review for Stephanie's Book Reports.

The Apprehension is the sixth book in Shay Savage's Unexpected Circumstances Series. You must read the first five book in order to not be lost during this amazing series.

After the shocking discovery of traitors in their midst and their demise, Branford and Alexandra have rekindled their relationship. Branford is determined to always protect and keep Alexandra at his side always. With enemies still lurking will Branford be able to keep Alexandra safe??

Oh my goodness this book was so emotional for me. I am so in love with Branford and Alexandra as a couple I just wanted really good things to happen and the,meet to enjoy them. But I knew better. It's a Shay Savage book after all. I've read enough of her books to know if you get to comfortable she will pull the rug right out from under you. I'm not saying a lot about the story as I don't want to give anything away whatsoever in this sixth book. Holy wow though!!! Well played Shay Savage. Well played indeed.

If you've not read this series you are missing out on one amazing set of books. If your not a historical romance fan and that's keeping you from reading I strongly urge you to pick them up. I'm not a historical romance fan but this series has become my addiction. If anyone can make historical romance amazing it is without a doubt Shay Savage.

After reading a small flurry of 2013 novels which are contenders for the year's Pulitzer Prize, I decided to turn to my bookshelves and reread some of the past winners. This novel won in 1921, the first time the prize was claimed by a woman. My conclusion: as clever as some of the modern offerings are, they in no way match the excellence of this one.

The Age of Innocence is set in New York City in the 1870's, so Wharton, in 1920, was writing a historical novel. The characters are members of the old-family aristocracy of wealth, with their rigid codes of behavior and expectations. A young man finds himself caught between a sense of duty and a longing for escape and passion when he falls unexpectedly in love with his fiance's cousin. Obviously, the basic plot is not at all new; it's the love triangle. But what Wharton makes of this is something entirely original, and the ending is not at all what is expected, although it is perfect.

What makes this book better than most more modern novels?

First, the writing is impeccable. It is not showy or self-consciously clever, but in a very understated way reveals the irony and tragedy, as well as the sense of safety, of a structured and restrictive society. Every small descriptive detail (and the book has many descriptive details) is pertinent to an understanding of the characters. The book abounds in jewels of writing genius and is one of those novels that reveals itself in new ways each time it is read, absorbing to read even if one already knows the plot. For example, I took away something entirely different from this reading than from previous readings, due, I think, to the perspective of my more advanced age. I understood the ending in an entirely different way.

This is a book of many aspects: a fascinating historical glimpse of a place and time; a meditation about choices and their implications; an examination of how environment influences behavior; an extraordinarily perceptive character study; a love story of heart-rending pathos. And it contains one of the most romantic lines of dialogue in all of literature--"Each time you happen to me all over again."

I unreservedly recommend this novel only to readers of about age 30 and above because I don't believe younger readers will have the perspective to understand the decisions and actions of the characters. I believe the older you are, the more you will appreciate it.

Stunning novel in so many respects, it captures a certain era of NYC like no other work I've ever read. Upon my first reading of this spectacular book several years ago I remember being floored and almost read each chapter with a certain awe as the pretentious, stuffy and insular world of upper crust New Yorkers and Europeans unfolded. Wharton never fails to capture the subtlety of the genuine human feelings, longings and foibles underneath it all; these emotions are always there, like a simmering specter hovering just near the events.

Wharton's written one of the most important novels of all-time with The Age of Innocence because she was a young woman of that milieu and lived almost as a type of pseudo-sentinel who observed everything only later to convey such an incredibly valuable story to the world. I'm in no way exaggerating when I write that The Age of Innocence will stand forever as a seminal work of literature as well as history. As the story flows on it's with a shocking sort of reverence that one has over this entire chapter of a New York that's long, long gone.

She carries off masterful descriptions of Newland's turmoil and frustrations. Never have I witnessed such perfect writing about the inner conflicts and heartaches of a young man slowly realizing he's essentially been snookered by his high society compatriots. May knew all along, which is why she felt the need to inform Ellen virtually before anyone else that Dallas was on the way, prompting Madam Olenska's permanent departure to France.

When Newland finally declares toward the end that he's old fashioned, "just tell her I'm old fashioned" it's unbelievably poignant and heartrending.

With `The Age of Innocence' Edith Wharton put together one of the best things ever in print.

I promise to be brutally honest with my opinion, but it should not be taken as fact. Any reader should read it for themselves, before they decide if this book has any merit or not. Do not judge this book biased solely on my opinion. If you do, you might miss out on a great read. You never know. It could happen.

1. Strong Main Character/ Female Heroine: Newland Archer is an aggravating male protagonist. He is a man that talks the talk, but will not walk the walk. He is a hypocrite. He loves to talk about society and how messed up it is, but he never does anything to change it. He never challenges society. He lets it control him, even as his mind is saying that he is overcoming it. He is not. He is just accepting that society rules his life, because he lets it. He is a coward and a romantic. He loves the idea of challenging the societal norms, but he does absolutely nothing to that effect. He loves the idea of things, but not the actual doing or outcome of it. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator calls him a dilettante. It really describes Newland very well, because he is never going to be a man and stand up for himself and the ones that he loves. If I lived back when this novel first came out, I might have enjoyed it more, but as is, I like really strong character, who overcome authority, not characters that let other people walk all over them. 3 out of 5 stars

2. Strong Minor Characters: May is a devious little thing that the reader does not see working her magic, until the book is half over. Then, the reader sees all the little things that May does to trap Newland into marriage. She is not the innocent little sweet May that everyone talks about, who is so pretty and naive. She is none of these things. She may be beautiful, but she is as ugly as fat old Mrs. Mingott. She likes to control Newland without seeming to and she guilt trips him into doing everything that she wants. She is able to switch around his words into something else. Into something that he did not mean or say. Ellen is the wild, feisty married woman that he wishes he could marry; however, he makes hundreds of mistakes making it impossible for them to be together. Ellen is not as wild as he thinks her to be. She is actually very normal and the only thing that makes her wild is living in Europe, marrying a Count, and wanting a divorce. These are the only things that make her wild in New York society. Newland romanticizes her wildness in his mind, so that he cannot separate the Ellen of his fantasies with the real Ellen. 4 out of 5 stars

3. The Setting: Old New York society is a very interesting place, especially with the mix of old money with the new. It reminds me of the roaring twenties, even though this is the middles 1800s and not 1920. I love discovering all the different places all over the east coast of the United States and even parts of Europe. I got to travel without ever leaving my bedroom. Only a true novelist could ever achieve that. 5 out of 5 stars

4. The Plot: The underlying plot will come to readers after finishing the whole entire book and discussing it in a college course will definitely help you figure it out, but I had it figured out before class, you any dedicated reader can, too. I do not want to give anything more else away, but there are many layers of plot to this book that there is not just one answer. There are many answers based off of experience and level of education. Everyone reads a novel differently and everyone gets something different out of the same book. This is why I write reviews. 4 out of 5 stars

5. The Artwork: The cover is sweet and has an old timey feel. It perfectly matches the plot of the book. The only improvement that I would suggest is adding Newland of the cover, because it is really his age of innocence that Wharton speaks of. 4 out of 5 stars

6. The Writing: The writing is beautiful and exquisite. I have always loved the style of Wharton. She reminds me so much of Jane Austen, except Wharton’s characters have a more realistic demise that does not end with a happy ending for all of her characters. I was not at all intimidated by all of the big words. Since I am an English major, I knew a lot of the words already and the ones that I did not know, I looked up. You really boost your vocabulary and I know that I will be using some of these newly discovered words on my assessment paper. I think I learned about 500 new words are so…maybe less, but there abouts. Any English major or enjoyer of old English will enjoy this novel by Wharton, although her best was The House of Mirth. 4 out of 5 stars

7. The Dialogue: I love the dialogue. No one says what they really mean and you have to try to discover what they really mean. It is a detective game that will have you guessing throughout the entire novel. I enjoy having to figure characters out and the dialogue helps to show how complicated and three dimensional all of the characters truly are. 5 out of 5 stars

Overall, I give this novel 4 stars. I would read another book by Wharton, because so far, I have really enjoyed her books. She is a nice change from Jane Austen, when I have feeling depressed and want my characters to suffer. In Wharton’s books, they always seem to.

The Age of Innocence is a brilliant display of how one man's life becomes this relentless, downward spiral, all because he can't follow his heart. It would be wrong to call Newland Archer, the protagonist, self-sabotaging, but he does lack the willpower to stand up to the unforgiving society in which he lives, upper-class New York of the 1870s, a world full of aristocracy, outings to the opera, formal dances in exquisite ball rooms, peopled with the elite who "dreaded scandal more than disease." This corroded society flows with Newland Arches veins and paralyzes him emotionally.

Edith Wharton is also an expert practitioner in the art of sentence making. Blindly, you could pick any sentence from the novel, and you'll be guaranteed a feast of language; every sentence reveals more than it says on the page.

Following one's one heart can be the most difficult path of all, and not everyone has what it takes to survive that journey. Happiness must be earned, and is only for the strong who dare to seize it. This novel is ever bit as relevant today as it was when it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. How many of us would love more than anything to follow our hearts and do what makes us happy, but yet we're shackled to what society demands, or what we think society demands. In the end, we have the power to remove those shackles, or do we?

Oh Shay, Shay, Shay… truth be told, I was ready to cuss and curse you for the events in this book, but you gave me those last few lines, so all is right with the world again, whew! BAHAHA

Brantford and Alexandra just managed to get over a major hurdle and things seem to start to settle down; but of course not! They’re finally getting to a point that they want but Brantford still has his enemies and there are more at stake now with Alexandra’s condition.

Alexandra definitely is now showing her feisty side. And Brantford’s delicious alpha tendencies are in full swing, all for the love of his life.

That ending? Gah!!! I want to see those evil people get their full comeuppance in the final book, grrr…

One more book to go!

*Copy received in exchange for a review

Edith Wharton 'The Age of Innocence'

As many readers before me I had difficulty getting into the story and its characters. But after reading how Archer Newland compared the face of his beautiful young fiancé May with that of her mother

'a middle-aged image of invincible innocence. Ah, no he did not want May to have that kind of innocence, the innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience.'

I was all into the novel and it proved well worth it.

I also had to realize that New York was not always the capital of the world, but once – in the 1870's when this novel is set - a very rigid and conventional society.

Sometimes it was painstaking how well Edith Wharton shows us what a conventional society does to the individual. The last pages – when Archer Newland comes to visit Madame Olenska's house in Paris, but does not go in to see her – were close to brilliant. I almost wanted to kick him inside and meet the love of his life again after more than twenty years.

Next to that the whole novel is beautifully written with sentences such as:
"Each time you happen to me all over again"

Edith Wharton 'The Age of Innocence'

Alexandra and Branford are back in the sixth installment and this is what I was waiting for and now I have to wait for more! This must be read in order to know what the story is about. A quick rundown, she is a commoner and is married to the King. They must produce an heir. We find out in the last book that there were traitors in their mist, preventing conception for the heir. They are taken care of but King Egar will not go quietly.
This whole series has pulled me in and has given my love of historicals back.

I can't wait for the finale!

Reviewed by Shay from Mommys a Book Whore

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

I was and wasn't surprised to find that a movie had been made of this book. However, I can't see a way that a movie could capture all the interior dialogue that went on throughout this novel. (I have put the movie into my Netflix queue) And without the interior dialogue the story will be one-dimensional and, I suspect, so will all of the major characters.
Since the lifestyle that restricts people to their designated place in life is something that I would and do rebel against I felt keenly aware of the struggles and resignation that were experienced by several characters, but particularly the main male protagonist, Newland Archer and the wonderful Countess Ellen Olenska. Wharton let them come close, again and again, to soaring and freeing their souls and kept us wondering until nearly the end if they would succeed.
Set in high society in New York City in the 1870's and wonderfully written I came away feeling as if I'd had a glimpse into that time. In my own life I've experienced some of the echoes of that sort of restrictive lifestyle, one where niggling social details that seem ridiculous to me are all-important to others. When so and so used such and such a phrase what did they really mean? In my world, who cares? If you have something to express then just tell me and don't expect me to spin my wheels trying to figure it out. Yet that is the world of "The Age of Innocence".

I didn’t know what to expect with this book. Often times the literature considered to be classic can be boring or difficult to get wrapped up in. But this story was so elegantly written, so insightful into the human soul and all its intricacies, and into the acrid Ives one makes to obey social norms. Thought provoking and timeless. Plus, for anyone with a special place in their heart for Manhattan, it’s fun to imagine NYC of over a century ago.

I remember this as a favorite from my 12th grade English class, and I was happy to open it up again. As I began to read I was disappointed that I remembered nothing of the plot or characters (although Newland Archer may have left behind a handkerchief or a straw hat in some dusty chamber). The excellence of the prose, an assessment I do remember making in my 17th year, is indisputable. And I vaguely recollect my teacher, Alan Shapiro, sitting, corduroy clad legs crossed at the knees, and telling us what the book’s central theme was: the crushing pressure that society exerts on an individual to conform him or her to its designs.

That indeed is the theme. Newland Archer is a young lawyer, born and bred to live according to the upper class standards of his time and place. He has been smitten by May, a lovely, cheerful blonde girl from his social set. Without knowing each other well, they become engaged (as the custom probably was). But a problem develops: into this promising but bland situation steps his fiancee’s cousin, a woman who represents everything that Newland’s life is not – liberated, spontaneous, painful, and uncertain. The rest of the book follows the couple as they slowly recognize their feelings about each other and begin to communicate about it, and then proceed to vacillate endlessly – both of them less than willing to face the pain, scandal, and upheaval that their coupling would certainly cause.

The book is more about things that do not happen rather than those that do, but none of it is ever boring. Wharton is a masterful satirist who cleverly immerses herself in the social setting of the New York upper crust of the 1870s (she herself was born into the same milieu in 1862). She is not unsympathetic to her characters, even when she portrays them negatively. Her prose is elegant and descriptive, and always focused on the story and characters at hand. Wharton was apparently an admirer and close friend of Henry James, who worked a similar territory. Like most classic stories, it is both of its time and timeless, and makes for a great read.

Phew. Okay. We're literally inching our way to the finish line with this series and man was it a ride!

With the big revelation at the ending of bk5, I was anxious but also ecstatic for what was in the makings to come. With the kingdom at the brink of war and Alexandra's health and status tampered with, Branford is taking no prisoners with anyone who messes with his birthright and wife (+future heir).

As this is a novella and very short and to the point, I can't divulge what happens but with author Shay Savage throwing throes and thrills into the mix, we should all expect the unexpected really.

Loved this sixth installment and can't wait for the 7th and final book in this short but umm long? series!!

America and Europe of the 1800s were stiff, gilded, formal place, full of "old" families, rigid customs and social transgressions.

And nobody chronicled them better than Edith Wharton, who spun exquisitely barbed novels out of the social clashes of the late nineteenth century. "The Edith Wharton Omnibus" contains some of the best work she ever did, exploring the nature of infidelity, passion and a woman's place in an unfriendly world.

"Age of Innocence" is a pretty ironic title. Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating count husband. At first, the two are friends, but then they become something more.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and a safe, dull life?

"Ethan Frome" is the male half of a loveless marriage, with the fretful, fussy Zeena. Then Zeena's lovely cousin Mattie Silver comes to live with them, and she brings out a happier, more passionate side of Ethan. But when Mattie is sent away, Ethan must make a decision. He knows he can't stay in his horrible marriage, so will he run away with Mattie? The choice they make will affect all three lives.

And finally,"Old New York" is a collection of four novellas, exploring different facets of, well, Old New York -- family strife, adultery, illegitimate children, and a young man's inner changes. It stretches over forty years, with one of the novellas set in each successive decade.

Wharton tended to pay attention to three things: human nature, society, and how the two often clashed. She doesn't judge, she just tells it how it was. Divorce was almost unthinkable, affairs scandalous if revealed, and women had the cards stacked against them in matters of love, marriage and sex.

Wharton's formal, often poetic writing style makes these stories all the richer. They're rich with light, smells, sounds and the swirl of nature, even in a city. But it's offset by the starkness of her stories -- if she took a hard look at hypocrises and social conventions, she didn't flinch from showing what happened to those that transgressed. It's realistic, but a bit depressing.

And her characters come to life with startling reality. Wharton never resorts to sentimentality or cheap tricks to make us react to them -- stuffy "aristocrats" of the New World, the sorrowful poor of New England, and bright bohemians. The more brilliant, appealing characters like the free-spirited Countess are easy to feel liking for, but Wharton even makes the less appealing characters -- like the wishy-washy Newland -- realistically complex.

Doomed love and personal reflection are what makes up a lot of "Edith Wharton Omnibus." Sad and beautiful, gripping and classic.

"The room is stifling: I want a little air." Newland Archer is a member of placid Old New York society; a typical young gentleman engaged to a typical young girl, May Welland. Typical, yes, but privately Newland likes to fancy himself a little more open, a little more adventurous than his peers. But is he really? The world he lives in is like a glass-smooth pond populated with snowy swans gliding about in instinctual patterns. Newland has never been outside of this world and doesn't realize how much a part of it he really is. His sensitivity is all in theory, but not in practice: "...He was at heart a dilettante, and thinking over a pleasure to come often gave him a subtler satisfaction than its realisation." A battered black swan suddenly propels itself into their midst, and for the first time, we perceive these elegant creatures' frantic underwater paddling. Always a bit of an outsider in their world, the Countess Ellen Olenska has returned to the fold, running from her brilliant foreign marriage. Scandal seems to go hand-in-glove with Ellen. As May's cousin, The Wellands rally around her, and try to squeeze Ellen' square peg into the round hole of Old New York. As a prospective member of the family, the Wellands enlist Newland's help. Resentful at first, he slowly finds his moral vision widening as he learns the full details of Ellen's situation: "For the first time he perceived how elementary his own principles had always been...The case of the Countess Olenska had stirred up old settled convictions and set them drifting dangerously through his mind." He falls in love with Ellen. Why? At a stroke, Wharton answered that question be describing Newland looking about Ellen's parlor while waiting for her: "The atmosphere was so different from any he had ever breathed that self-conciousness vanished in the sense of adventure." Newland suddenly feels trapped by his life and everyone in it; he knows it like the back of his hand. He has to make a choice: safety with May, or adventure with Ellen. Newland's choice, its consequences, and his futile efforts to reverse it I leave to you to discover. In sparkling clear, cold prose, Wharton presents this dilemma that at first exasperates the modern reader; go on! we say. Grab for that happiness! It'll all work out in the end, right? On the surface it does seem that simple, but keep reading and it makes you question today's go-for-it attitude. Maybe getting your heart's desire isn't what you need; there's a difference between adventure and home. Maybe the heart needs a home that's safe and familiar, however unexciting. Wharton's touch is as deft as a diamond-cutter's as she fashions the many facets of this gem. It's so much more than just a romance. At the time of this review, the free version is no longer available. Spring for a full-price copy. You won't regret it.

Young attorney, Newland Archer, lives in a bubble, a closed in world. He is very wealthy, from a good New York City family. His mother is a widow, he has a sister who is sliding into spinsterhood. Mother and daughter are close.

Newland is tired of this life. He wants more out of life than just this. He is engaged to a lovely girl, May, who is much like the girls he grew up and has always known. She is from the same background as Newland. He loves her and wants her for his wife. But there is more as he soon find out. But he marries a girl from his background. He needs adventure, something and somebody different. But life goes on, repititous,boring. The same, always the same.

The book begins at the opera where many of his set go to be entertained, to watch, to comment and to gossip. A young woman, a cousin, is with May Welland and her mother. She is the countess Olenska who has left her Polish count and is staying with her grandmother, Mrs Manson Mingott, who does not go out in public since she has become very obese. Characters must visit her in her home. Ellen Olenska is very liberal, different and if Newland Archer had met her first the story would have been different. But the families approve of the May Welland, Newland Archer engagement. Ellen Mingott was brought up by a liberal aunt, her parents are dead, therefore she had a different upbringing than Newland, May and those of their set.

Ellen Olenska is so different from her peers that those of her grandmother's friends disaprove of the young woman and make their disapproval known. Her grandmother likes her outgoing ways , the young lady has a mind of her own and doesn't mind expressing herself. Countess Olinska wants a divorce. Her relatives want no part of divorce. It would shame the family. There is no divorce in their upper class culture. Newland talks her out of such an action convinced by those around of the embarrassment to this closed in society. Newland is attracted to Ellen. She is much different than the insipid young woman of his acquaintance.

The period of the story is the 1870s, not long after the Civil War.

Edith Wharton came from this type background. The book was written in 1920. Ms Wharton loved to travel to Europe and moved to France where she died. The book is still popular and being read.

This is a very clever book.

It is very interesting as one would not normally think of aristocracy as being American. However, not necessarily having a long history in America, the American white settlers, despite breaking away from Britain, looked to Britain and took on many of the lifestyles of the English. Their continued love of the British heritage and royalty has to be understood against that background. Edith Wharton is a very good writer and her description of the New York aristocracy, their conventions and thinking, reminds one of the works of Jane Austen.

The Age of Innocence is a book that you have to read to the end in order to get the full meaning of the story. It sometimes appears as if there is just ongoing descriptions of the habits and conventions but Edith Wharton is a very clever writer. Newland Archer's thoughts about what had made someone like May Welland such an innocent person, as opposed to the carefree, convention breaking Ellen Olenska, were interesting because it does convey how gender attitudes are often established and supported. But in many ways he is the innocent one in the story because he did not realise other forces that were also powerful in society. Women like May Welland could be very clever, and skilful in getting what they wanted. The story also shows how a society like that in New York could very cleverly, and subtly, protect its members.

A very worthwhile book.

"Newland Archer was a quiet and self-controlled young man. Conformity to the discipline of a small society had become almost his second nature. It was deeply distasteful to him to do anything melodramatic and conspicuous..." (pp. 324-325) I think Edith Wharton chose a male protagonist here because in New York's Gilded Age men could act much more freely than women. Whether male or female, her main characters often reflect her own dilemma---how to escape from a stiflingly conformist society based on wealth and inherited position that condemned intellectual activity particularly in women. Though the number of relatives may confuse you in the first chapters, New York society is a main character in this novel and so the portrayal of interlocking families is a necessity. Even being male, Newland Archer could not escape the coils of this society.

I first read THE AGE OF INNOCENCE over fifty years ago, as a college freshman. It seems to me (dimly for sure) that I didn't get it. I lacked life and literary experience, I lacked any vision of society except my own, and I was impatient to finish in order to read the science fiction and cheap romantic novels which, along with history, travel and contemporary political description was what I liked at the time. I wrote it off as "boring". I've just re-read it and found it wonderful. Your perspective, like mine, is going to depend on your own life experience. That may, of course, be true of your opinion of any novel, but I would say, of this one more than most. The description of New York society, its ways, its opinions, and its physical surroundings--clothes, food, furniture, conveyances, work modes, hangouts---is superb. The novel could only be written by one who knew the whole scene intimately. The marriages of the tight little elite of an already-vast city (we are speaking about the 1870s) guaranteed the strict adherence to a behavioral code that forced elite society into very narrow, restricted patterns, with severe penalties for those who strayed. That is why the love story here, between Newland Archer and his wife's cousin, Ellen Olenska, remains for readers of today's more liberated times, pale, tentative, frustratingly sporadic. There is no sex. In such a hothouse world, even the word "divorce", never mind stronger, more passionate terms, was one that was not heard by `proper' ladies. The two lovers, separated by Fate, do not, cannot, challenge society and try to come together. Ellen, who has fled back to New York from a debauched European husband, and Newland, who is engaged to a perfect society daughter, fall in love. Slowly, slowly we read of the forces which mitigate against their union. Newland raises his family and never escapes to the wider life of the mind for which he longs. Ellen returns to Europe. The end is sad but beautiful in its own way. Not very Hollywood, however. For those who like action, this novel will prove anathema. Don't even think about it. If you like fine writing and extreme sensibilities, if you sometimes muse on Fate and your own acceptance or non-acceptance of it, and if you are curious about the Big Apple's greener days, THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is definitely going to be your cup of tea.

I've never really understood or appreciate much about NYC so it was with some reluctance that I started Edith Wharton's classic short novel on high society life in New York city at the close of 19th century (1870s). Wharton's Pulitzer-prize winning "Age of Innocence" depicts all the hypocrisy and convention, duty and criticism, propriety and snobbery of the New York elite as it tells the story of protagonist Newland Archer who is the product of this very society and his agonies over the boundaries of its imposed limits.

The story is really just about Newland Archer and the two women in his life, one who is the safe predictable and decent choice by all society's then standards, and one who is not. Indeed, you would not be mistaken to think this a dull plot, told in no less than a million other works of fiction or real life. But alas, few others are written in the prose and authenticity of Edith Wharton's writing style, reason enough to read "Age of Innocence".

I liked Wharton less than Henry James, far less than Jane Austen, and on no visible scale with Emily Brontë', but I still consider her mastery and command of the rich English language a talent bestowed on few. Her plot of characters was more complex than what I would have liked in such a short novel, and the intricacies of the detailed interactions among the distant characters interested me minimally in the context of the plot, but tremendously in the context of New York elite mindset and ways. Was New York ever so confined to such rigid way of thinking and existing, and European way of life considered so disgraceful and degrading in comparison?

It is difficult to understand Newland Archer. He seems more of an observer of his own life than one in control of it. He seems to be deeply meditating on his choices and hardly acting on them. He studies May Welland, his wife, as though studying a dull piece of art, in great lengths, and expresses surprise at every new discovery. He then compares her to Ellen and finds everything that is not May attractive and desirable. His rush into an engagement and subsequent marriage to May seem at odds with his intense desire to pursue this unrequited love for her cousin, Ellen.

Wharton leaves a lot to the imagination. I still do not understand why Newland does not seriously pursue Ellen Olenska. Is it society's disapproval? Not a strong enough reason for a man like Newland Archer for which to give up his heartthrob. Maybe the answer is in the poetic title: Age of Innocence. Is the Innocence then a reference to the youth that knows no better, and wants that which it cannot have? Is it the Innocence of deeds and duties that is unquestionably carried out under society's pressures and expectations? Or is it really an element in Newland's own personality, whence all his actions are born?

Newland Archer is an indecisive man, whom society manages to bend and mold into the "perfect" husband and father. Society, elite or otherwise, does not care that his heart is filled with regrets 30 years into the future, and his own sense of purpose in life left unaccomplished. But I argue that Newland himself does not care either, for why else does he not pursue Ellen more obstinately? Why does he let the opportunities slip, and his youth and dreams slip even faster? Why would anyone allow that in the blatant presence of such possibility for true happiness?

It is the sign of an accomplished author that makes us think, question, wonder, and urges us to re-read some sections of the book in search of answers, understanding or just for the quiet joy of beautiful prose. A highly accomplished author who leaves me flipping through the pages for her eloquence of the inarticulate in the human emotion and circumstance and for that, I am grateful that I read Edith Wharton's classic.

After reading The House of Mirth for my New York Stories class as an undergrad, I was hooked on Edith Wharton. No one explains the New York upper crust at the turn of the century better than she, partly because she was a card-carrying member of the high society of which she writes.

When I began reading this paperback, I found the old-fashioned prose and dialogue a little off-putting--enough to set it down for a few years. The stilted, once-fashionable speech of the characters first seemed to be a reflection of Wharton's lack of imagination; the book seemed a tad boring and slow-moving at times.

But once I began listening to it on audiobook, I enjoyed the book much more. Wharton, intimately acquainted with the charm and wit--and the machinations and whims--of New York society, transports the reader into the inner sanctuary of the city's wealthiest, a circle with deeply embedded customs and manners as incredible as any fantasy novel.

She acts as a kind of anthropologist, recording the native tongue and strange mannerisms of a society that had already begun to change radically. Newland's stuffy, stodgy generation is contrasted against one greatly altered (and liberated) by World War I.

Though the story seems mired down by the unique customs and traditions that Wharton seeks to encapsulate, the story is, at its heart, a universal one. Who has not yearned for freedom from normative restraints? Who has not felt the desire to rebel against what you should do, to buck tradition and follow your heart?

Edith Wharton received the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman in 1921 for The Age of Innocence. Though at first I wondered how such cautious, traditional prose could win the award, by the end I had realized that Wharton's combination of anthropology and art made this a unique and important book.

Wharton uses her extensive knowledge of this high society's manners and speech to fully immerse the reader in an authentic and complex world, while simultaneously exploring the extent to which societal norms and expectations shape a person.

For a full review, visit my site, Melody & Words!

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

Gentle, powerful story that speaks across the ages. I found it a study in the idea that we do not act in a vacuum, what we do and say has repercussions and we will be a kinder people if we embrace that. Did not find it slow but rather enjoyed the descriptive language and the pace of yesteryear.

Edith Wharton is a wonderful observer of the human condition and brought that to life once again in this novel. Using the backdrop of New York stratified society as her foundation, her protagonist, Archer, is the long-suffering character who yearns for a fullness of life he can never achieve. As in her novel Ethan Frome, Wharton is a master of developing marital situations in which the husband yearns for freedom which the wife will not or supposedly cannot give him. There is a subtheme of pathos in The Age of Innocence that bespeaks the lassitude and longing felt as emptiness by her characters. I heartily recommend this novel to the serious historical fiction reader. Excellent work.

Other novels present you with slices of life; with Edith Wharton's "The Age Of Innocence" you get an entire social structure.

Published in 1920, "Age Of Innocence" consciously captures a Manhattan as it existed for the island's upper crust some fifty years before. Newland Archer is a young man from one of the city's first families determined to do the right things as prescribed by his set. It's an easy life until, on the eve of his engagement to the demure and lovely May Welland, an exotic figure appears in the Wellands' opera box. Ellen Olenska, May's cousin, is back from the Old World having escaped from a bad marriage. Newland is initially upset at the somewhat scandalous situation Ellen presents, but over time he sees in Ellen something vital and magical his life has previously lacked. Will he act on those feelings, or will his social order keep him down?

A slow-moving story where major moments sometimes turn on nothing happening at all, "Age Of Innocence" starts out a light endurance test for readers with little in the way of notable incident. Like her contemporary Henry James, Edith Wharton is often engrossed in the thought processes of her characters to the point where they stand still.

Yet Wharton never bores you the way James sometimes can, at least not in this book, with her wonderfully dazzling and witty descriptions of New York society. Take her introduction of the fat, wise Welland matriarch, Mrs. Manson Mingott, worthy of Monty Python: "The immense accretion of flesh which had descended on her in middle life like a flood of lava on a doomed city had changed her from a plump, active little woman with a neatly turned foot and ankle into something as vast and august as a natural phenomenon."

In Wharton's hands we find ourselves in the minutely-described manor of Julius Beaufort, an Englishman with a disreputable reputation in business and matrimony that is looked past by his otherwise exacting neighbors because his house has one of the few private ballrooms in the city.

Later on in the story, when a character with his own well-known clandestine activities inveighs against the loose morals of his neighbors, another mutters to Newland: "The people who have the worst cooks are always telling you they're poisoned when they dine out."

Wharton captures this culture with the right sense of fun, but also surprising warmth for the lost place and time. She grew up in New York in the 1870s and clearly regarded it by the start of the Jazz Age with a combination of nostalgic wistfulness and the analytical curiosity of an explorer digging into the remains of Pompeii. She presents a narrow yet comfortable world, where people seem to enjoy the high level of security that comes from knowing one another intimately. Even Ellen the outsider talks of having come back because "I want to feel cared for and safe."

Cutting against this idea is the other major one Wharton presents, easier for us to note today, of a society where the idea of women being as free as men can seem shocking. For Ellen, the possibility of a sexually active lifestyle outside her marriage punishes her in a way it doesn't her openly philandering husband. But women are both the victims and enforcers of this strange moral code. In May Welland you have the best example of both, a cheerful, superficially simple character who seems oblivious of the growing feeling between her husband and her cousin yet nevertheless is playing what James would call "a very deep game."

Is May the hero or villain of this piece? It's another bit of marvelous ambiguity from Wharton. "Age Of Innocence" contains much matter about which every reader will have to decide for themselves, perhaps most notably in the book's ending. That's Wharton's great gift to us here, a novel that seems to tell us everything but leaves it to us to decide on what it all means.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

After slogging through way too many poorly edited ebooks of late, it was time to turn to classic literature.

Edith Wharton is the mistress of social commentary; her delightful powers of observation regarding every nuance of behavior are shared with the reader; and each turn of phrase sets the scene as thoroughly as if we were there.

We are faced with dilemmas of the human soul and the taboos of "good" society amidst its conventions. "Old New York" was almost a character in its own right,so much of a role was it assigned. Family and position = tribal bonds

We are drawn into the fray via the appeal of Countess Olenska and the shock her actions engender in polite society. The "triangle" is carefully established, and there is an ineffable sadness about her person.

The familiar is the safest...Americans come across as staid, set in their ways and boring compared to Europeans.

I enjoyed the mildly humorous observations on things like the limitations obesity put upon Mrs. Mingott.

Some of my favorites of Ms. Whaton's observations are: "Fierce spinsters who said `No' on principle before they knew what they were going to be asked"... "The innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience."

I ordered this book and I have not received it? However, your system indicates that I have it? How do I have this book sent to me to my Kendle? I'm a new purchaser of books for Kendle e-books, but I will not order another until I have confidence that I can receive them.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

In Edith Wharton's classic "The Age of Innocence" the protagonist Newland Archer is torn between his love for Countess Olenska and his loyalty to his aristocratic clan. Desperate to experience the resplendent splendor of life that the Countess promises, Archer is ultimately undone by the machinations, norms, and habits of his family. When Archer accepts his fate, he also accepts a life of comfortable respectability but also one of dull mediocrity.

Or at least that's what they say.

Writing in a luxurious and lethargic language that is proof of her comfort and confidence in her wealth and in her place in society, Edith Wharton paints a portrait of Newland Archer that is quite unflattering. He is a man who has dreams and who has longings, but it is all within the internal workings of his mind. Outside, he is a man who is all too content with his easy aristocratic life: he is expected to do nothing and does nothing at his law office, and we can assume that he learned nothing at Harvard. He inherited domestic tranquility with his mother and his sister, and his marriage was both a birth-right and responsibility. When Countess Olenska appears on the scene, her beauty and her independence do stir some romantic imaginings in him, but he does very little. We assume that if his fiance weren't so diabolically clever in the way that only aristocrats can be Archer would have run away with the Countess by the end of part one of the book. But how do we in fact know that Archer's dreams were thwarted, and that he just didn't find convenient excuses not to pursue them? This is a man who has never shown any hint of rebellion and dissent, and we are only creatures of habit.

The only proof of Archer's character comes at the end of the book. His wife is dead, his children are grown, and the society has changed around him. If now was a perfect time for Archer to at least pursue his passion for the Countess now was it. And indeed his son arranges a meeting between him and the Countess, but Archer, perhaps just sick and tired of finding excuses for his blind loyalty to his clan, just gets up and leave without even struggling to explain why he would do so.

Newland Archer is ultimately nothing more than a product of the times he grew up. He internalized all the habits and norms of his clan without really questioning them. When he could finally question, he instead just retreated again to the certainty of his Manhattan enclave.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

From the ending in the previous book, we knew things are going to hit the fans. Branford is on a warpath to those who dare crossed him and Alexandra. What I didn't expect was for the violence to escalate so much. It was all very Game of Throne, if you get what I mean. I'm quite shock by it, but enjoying it tremendously. Is time for some payback.

The drama is getting more complicated, with more players involved and add in a deranged villain, we're in for such a great time. I'm more than worked up by the cliffhanger and I believe the final installment to wrap up this series is gonna kick some major a$$. Give me more blood!

Nobody knew the hypocrises of "old New York" better than Edith Wharton, and nobody portrayed them as well. In "The Age of Innocence," Wharton took readers on a trip through the stuffy upper crust of 1870s New York, wrapped up in a hopeless love affair.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating count husband. At first, the two are friends, but then they become something more.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and a safe, dull life?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when J.Lo acquires and discards boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose. Probably it wasn't in the 1920s, when the book was first published. But this isn't a book to read if you appreciate sexiness and steam -- instead it's a social satire, a bittersweet romance, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Wharton brings old New York to life in this book -- opulent, beautiful, cultured, yet empty and kind of boring. It is "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought," so tied up in tradition that nobody there really lives. And even though the unattainable countess is beautiful and sweet, it becomes obvious after awhile that Newland is actually in love with the idea of breaking out of his conventional life.

Wharton's writing is a bit like a giant rosebud -- it takes forever to fully open. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms and gloves. Wharton put them in to illustrate her point about New York at that time, and all the stories about different families, scandals and customs are actually very important.

Newland seems like a rather boring person, since he only has brief bursts of individuality. But he gets more interesting when he struggles between his conscience and his longing for freedom. May is (suitably) pallid and a bit dull, while the Countess is alluringly mysterious and unconsciously rebellious. The fact that she doesn't TRY to rebel makes her far more interesting than Newland.

"Age of Innocence" considered a story about a man in love with an unattainable woman, but it's also about that man straining against a stagnant, hypocritical society. Rich, intriguing and beautifully written.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

Newland Archer, the protagonist of this ironically entitled novel set in the late nineteenth century, is a proper New York gentleman, and part of a society which adheres to strict social codes, subordinating all aspects of life to doing what is expected, which is synonymous with doing what it right. As the author remarks early in the novel, "Few things were more awful than an offense against Taste." Newland meets and marries May Welland, an unimaginative, shallow young woman whose upbringing has made her the perfect, inoffensive wife, one who knows how to behave and how to adhere to the "rules" of the society in which they live.

When Newland is reintroduced to May's cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has left her husband in Europe and now wants a divorce, he finds himself utterly captivated by her independence and her willingness to risk all, socially, by flouting convention. Both Ellen and Newland are products of their upbringing and their culture, however, and they resist their feelings because of their separate social obligations. Various meetings between them suggest that their feelings are far stronger than what is obvious on the surface, and the question of whether they will finally state the obvious or act on their feelings constitutes the plot.

Wharton creates an exceptionally realistic picture of New York in the post-Civil War era, a time in which aristocrats of inherited wealth found themselves competing socially with parvenus. Her ability to show the conflict between a person's need for social acceptance and the desire for personal freedom is striking. As the various characters make their peace with their decisions--either to challenge or yield to social dictates--the novel achieves an unusual dramatic tension, subtle because of its lack of direct confrontation and powerful in its effects on individual destinies. This is, in fact, less an "age of innocence" than it is an age of social manipulation.

Wharton herself manipulates the reader--some of her best dialogues and scenes are those the characters never actually have--conversations that they imagine, confrontations which they never allow themselves to have, and resolutions which happen through inaction rather than through decision-making. Filled with acute social observations, the novel shows individuals convincing themselves that obeying social dictates is the right thing to do. Though the novel sometimes seems claustrophobic due to its limitations on action, Age of Innocence brilliantly captures the age and attitudes of the era. Mary Whipple

The book begins with wit and irony, as Edith Wharton describes the small élite of New York society in the early 1870s. They lived within a whole series of well-understood conventions and assumptions which included nice and minute distinctions within the social hierarchy, a censorious and gossipy attitude towards any member of the set who strayed from what was expected of them in the manners, appropriate cultural interests, dress and furniture, and relations between the sexes. Those who were felt not to conform, such as the American-born Countess Olenska who had returned from Europe, leaving her husband and intending to divorce him, imperilled the reputation of their entire families. In that society, young unmarried women, in particular, were brought up in ignorance of the ways of the world, into which they were initiated only after their marriage. Until then, theirs was the age of innocence of the title.

That is the state in which May Welland was when she was engaged to Newland Archer. May Welland belonged to the same family as the Countess. They were cousins and the granddaughters of the powerful and wealthy matriarch, Mrs Mingott, a pivotal and superbly drawn character, both as to her personality and to her vast appearance. Newland was in a dilemma: he had really shared all the assumptions of his class; but now, to protect his fiancée, he felt he had both to defend the Countess and to dissuade her from going ahead with the divorce. The Countess is `unconventional' in other ways: she consorts with artists, who never mix with the social élite of New York, and she claims the right as a woman to live her own life. She is also very attractive, and Newland, in taking her side, not only finds himself unaccustomedly critical of the conventions in which he has been brought up, but falls in love with her, as she does with him. Then of course he wants her to divorce her husband so that they can marry, though he is engaged to May. The Countess thinks this impossible - perhaps out of loyalty to her cousin May (though this is not made explicit at the time); and Newland then does in fact feel bound to marry May, though he already feels the dread that he would be sucked into the conventional life which he was beginning to find stifling.

May's interests and attitudes indeed turned out to be much the same as those of the society into which she had been born (though she was no fool, understood more than her innocent air suggested, and knew how to use the coded language which said so much more than its surface would suggest). After a year and a half of marriage, Newland was just getting used again to the world in which he had after all also spent most of his earlier life, when the Countess Olenska reappeared in his life. Their love for each other has never died down, but they are no nearer to being able to make a life with each other: his code forbids divorce, and hers forbids the role of a mistress and the betrayal of other members of her family. And of the two, the enigmatic Countess is always the stronger and the saner one.

The strength of the tribe is irresistible, and it is brought out especially in the superlative description, both sardonic and touching, of the farewell dinner given, at May's insistence, in honour of the Countess' return to Europe.

A quarter of a century elapses between then and the last chapter of the book. This, too, is quite outstanding, describing not only how Newland`s family and public life had developed respectably in that time, but also what changes had come over New York society in the interval. Newland's son Dallas is so much less inhibited than his father had been; the stuffy mores of his father's generation have long passed away. In the brief portrayal of Dallas and of the relationship between him and his father Edith Wharton again shows herself as both a brilliant social historian as well as a sophisticated novelist.

I read this book because it was assigned to me by our book club. I have gotten 20% of the way in and nothing important has happened. There are WAY too many characters (too many rich families) to keep straight, and they are all boring, self righteous, and wordy. Don't bother reading...

Edith Wharton escapes from a tendency to melodrama (a problem of her era) to create her masterpiece novel "Age of Innocence." Set in post-Civil War New York, she deliniates the mores and customs of the New York Social List with care and depth.

Newland Archer is the protagonist, a true Greek tragic hero with a flaw. While Newland is a most upright, conventional young man, he harbors an urge to be artistic and "different" while taking a course through his life on a well-trodden path. He chooses May Welland as his bride, whose family is almost frozen by a rigid devotion to social custom; Mr. Welland, Newland soon realizes, has been made almost a cipher by the strictures imposed by his limited but socially conscious wife. May is likewise limited (Newland thinks about lifting the blinders that her upbringing has imposed on her and in a moment of perception, wonders if she has lost any ability to see beyond her limited horizons like the blind fish dwelling in caverns.) But he marries her nonetheless, admiring her silent ability to communicate subtle wishes and opinions by a single knowing glance. Later, this will come back to haunt him as he doesn't realize that what is pleasant when it conforms to his wishes, is restrictive and oppressive when it doesn't.

Meanwhile, May's cousin "poor Ellen" or Countess Olenska, returns from Europe after fleeing a poorly-arranged marriage with a dissolute Polish count. Her name is clever: the pedestrian "Ellen" contrasts almost comically with the pompous "Countess Olenska." As a contrast, Newland's spinsterish, horse-faced sister Janey shows the non-glamourous side of New York femininity, while Medora Manson, Ellen's aunt is a comic foil and a fun-house mirror to Ellen, much-married, and her real name is Chivers but she styles herself "The Marchioness Manson" as Manson can be transmuted to "Manzoni" in Italy. She flits between Europe and North America, married too many times and descending into eccentricity and poverty--a harbinger of what Ellen is heading towards.

Newland falls in love with Ellen, and she with him, but the paths they choose in living their lives lead them inexorably to loss and tragedy; but could any other choices have given them any more happiness?

Newland is tragic because he yearns for freedom and artistic expression but stays in his rut; this makes him in his own eyes a dilletante. When finally he has a chance to acquire his life's desire, he, at mid-fifties, gives it up. Is his last action in the book a renunciation of desire? Or is it a realization that his dreams are more real than what he can ever achieve for himself in the life he has chosen to live? I think the latter.

This is one of America's great novels and Wharton's masterpiece, in my opinion. I always look forward to re-reading it.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Barnes and Noble, 1920
293 pages
Classic
4.5/5 stars

Source: Own

Thoughts: I put this on my list because I wanted to read the first Pulitzer winning-novel by a woman; after enjoying Old New York, a collection of four short stories, I had high hopes for this. And they were mostly fulfilled.

I loved the pictures painted by Wharton; every detail seemed carefully chosen to convey the taste and wealth of the characters although I'm sure I didn't fully appreciate those details, given my 21st century sensibilities and understanding. I loved being enmeshed in that world and slowly journeying through it toward completion.

The part I didn't like was the character Newland Archer. He is torn between duty to his fiancee May Welland and passion for her cousin, the scandalous Countess Ellen Olenska who left her husband. I was caught up in that and I supported his choice. But I hated his musings on the innocence and conventionality of May-how was she to be different? I think that he is a stand-in for Wharton who was raised in that kind of environment but obviously had a sharp intellect of her own. Over the course of the novel though, I grew annoyed with him. I did not want to spend as much time with him as I did; I think I would have preferred this novel from a female point of view because Archer grated on me.

I would also like to see the movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer (j'adore her), and Winona Ryder.

Overall: Beautifully written; I definitely consider myself a fan of Wharton now.

Cover: Pretty gallery-I'm a big fan of the Barnes and Noble editions.

Newland Archer has a problem: he is married to one woman and in love with another. No, that is not his problem. If he were living in modern day America the couple would file for divorce, citing "irreconcilable differences," and get on with their lives. But in Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence, Newland lives in New York City in the 1880s and 1890s and is a member of the upper crust of New York society where divorce is not acceptable. Indeed, the rules of this culture are firm and minute, as for example the stricture against entering a box at the opera during a solo.

The novel begins with the return of Countess Olenska, the former Ellen Mingott, who left New York society behind at an early age when she moved to Europe with her aunt. She then married Count Olenska who is described as a brutish person who takes her inheritance (legally as her husband). Ellen leaves him and returns to New York to what she hopes will be the bosom of her family. The response is mixed since a woman is supposed, by cultural standards, to remain with her husband despite any circumstances. Ellen is also given to other behaviors that are contrary to the accepted norm.

At this point in the story Newland becomes engaged to May Welland, a beautiful young woman who is also a member of this society. But as Newland and Ellen interact they become conscious of their love for each other. Archer works (after a fashion) as an attorney for a law firm that primarily serves these families and is asked to persuade Ellen from filing for divorce from Count Olenska, which she finally agrees to do. May and Newland get married and the Countess continues to live in the United States but moves about rather than live in close proximity to Archer. As time goes by they meet on various occasions, always in tense, dramatic fashion. Finally the matriarch of the group, Mrs. Manson Miggot, agrees to provide Ellen with a substantial allowance and Ellen decides to return to Europe, but to remain independent of her husband. Newland is gladdened by this news because he has determined to leave his wife (damn the consequences!) to be with Ellen. The book then reaches it climax with Edith Wharton ultimately saying that one cannot successfully flaunt society's rules. On the other hand, Wharton's sympathies are clearly with Ellen as she is portrayed most favorably throughout the novel.

The Age of Innocence is worth reading as a glimpse into a world most people will never enter. Wharton is particularly well qualified to write about this world as she was a member of high New York society herself. For some people, including myself, this world is shallow and meaningless and the characters in the story frivolous and for the most part uninteresting. In a world where more than one billion people subsist each day on less than a dollar it is hard for me to find sympathy for people whose biggest problem is adhering to a set of rules that have little meaning beyond their circle.

Edith Wharton crafted this portrait of 1870's New York high society in 1920. It is a modern novel of a pre-modern time, informed by anthropology, sociology and psychology.

The role of a social order in shaping society, decisions, habits, mindsets, clothing, dinner and conversation is intricately illustrated. This a believable world that is accessible a century later.

The roles of social expectations, moral principles, obligations, commitments, hopes, desires, fears, stories, positions, relations, finance
and power on one man's decisions regarding two women are interwoven in a compelling drama. The author pulls the reader into this world, makes the time and characters familiar, looking forward to a resolution of the inherent conflicting forces.

Romance in high society is rarely a recipe for engaging the male audience. Wharton succeeds brilliantly, sharing the story through the eyes and reflections of the male lead. She has a hauntingly deep understanding of a man in conflict with himself. The leading man is presented as an attractive, self-aware, but flawed individual. The commonality and contrasts between him and the two ladies echoes throughout the book.

The intensity of life and making choices resonates long after the last page is turned.

When Edith Wharton published THE AGE OF INNOCENCE in 1920, she was writing of an age from her youth, one that had strict rules of conduct, one that punished those who flouted those rules, and one that rewarded those who broke them but had the good sense to do so quietly. The New York of the 1870s was just such an age. The upper echelons were peopled by the first and second generation newly rich. Those who counted knew everyone else who counted too. Such people lived lives that were unconnected to their more poverty-stricken brethren who lived away from the tree-lined terraces on Park Avenue. The married men were expected to have their sleazy affairs. The married women were expected to tolerate them. Single women were expected to get ready to become married women, knowing all the while the rules of the game.

Into just such a society, lawyer Newland Archer lives and works. He is one of the "innocents" of the title. He is ready to marry but in his innocence he plans to remain faithful. His world is ordered and logical. Enter his fiancé, May Welland. She too is innocent but her innocence is not the same as Newland's. Where he believes in the magic of the rabbit being pulled from the hat, May sees very well the hat's false bottom. May has been brought up to be a more rigidly stratified Stepford Wife, one who marries a man she knows will cheat on her, but her consolation is that, according to the Rules of the Game, his cheating must be covert and cannot lead to divorce. As long as both spouses play by the rules, everyone is reasonably happy and the System functions. Enter, Countess Ellen Olenska, a married cousin of May who visits her, meets Newland, and sparks fly. It would be perfectly acceptable for Ellen to tacitly cast a blind eye should Newland and Ellen commence a discrete affair, but for that to happen, the unspoken consensus must be that the affair cannot lead beyond the physical level. For if it were to go beyond that, then the Rules are threatened and the entire flimsy house of cards come crashing down. Ellen and Newland are tempted to have their affair, but they do not because they know that once they do, feelings take over and neither is strong enough to carry on with their hearts tugging one way but their bodies another. What Newland does do is to place his love for Ellen in an internal shrine and there it stays, year after year, neither growing nor shrinking. Eventually, after May has died and Newland is freed from the Rules, he can pick up the pieces even many years later. He and his adult son travel to Paris to see Ellen, but when the son walks into her apartment, Newland does not. Newland has lived with the shrine of love for so long in his heart that he prefers the image of a youthful Ellen to the reality of an aged one.

THE AGE OF INNOCENCE is a novel marked by the clashing of many tragedies, all of which had been erected to allow a rich society to function with minimal friction, but in the crushing of hope for May, Ellen, and Newland, this friction has morphed into a disintegration of all that good people hold dear. For these self-deluding scions of society, the cost is clearly far too high.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

In the beginning of the book I felt suffocated and annoyed by the old New York society yet appreciated Edith Wharton's caustic and dry humor when describing it and its denizens. I worried, though, that the book would aggravate me too much because of the characters and all of their rigid rules and arrogant affluence. However, that was what Edith wanted. We are thrust into the world of Newland Archer.

Just like Newland, I experienced the Countess Olenska as a delightful diversion and immediately wanted to read more about her world and conversations. When she asks Newland if he is much in love with his fiancee, he replies: "As much as a man can be." She then asks, "Do you think, then, there is a limit?" Through his relationship to her, Newland comes to the realization that all he had dreamed of turned out to be created by a fabricated self. Ellen Olenska awakened his authentic self, but because he had spent his entire young life on conforming to what he thought would equate with happiness, his former fantasy is suddenly turned into a constricting nightmare that he has to continue navigating.

May is brilliantly portrayed as a perfect and vapid beauty, almost mannequin-like in her icy and "innocent" approach to their future together.

I think both men and women would gain a lot from reading this, because we all have at one time yearned for someone or something (whether another person, career goal, etc.) that would require sacrificing one's identity so that if you followed your heart you would lose everything in the process except for your true self.

The suspense and angst builds as the novel progresses until I wanted to scream at Newland to run away with Ellen. The story ends when we find out what decisions were made, and that is followed by many years later and what had become of everyone. That part, to me, was the saddest.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

This story about the turn of the last century and the old-fashioned protagonist, Archer Newland, is queerly both outdated in most or all aspects and yet capable of being read by many future generations of readers.

Just about everything in this book has little to do with our present day lives - before electricity, before phones, before either world war, and set amid the upper crust New York society made up of persons (even those of the Mingotts who dwell up by that "park" near that art museum of the future) who babble and gossip among and about themselves - for better and for worse.

The heroine, Madame (Ellen) Olenska, shakes their pedigree tree when she and her European-reared mannerisms cajole easily and deftly with the suspicious and tightly-cliqued New York wealth. By always doing the right thing, she eventually shatters Archer's life - or does she? Her character personifies the coined term, "Do the right thing."

Because this script is penned by a woman's hand, it uniquely depicts the male perspective in an extremely accurate tone. Wharton's soft message against the not-as-soft strictures of elitist northeastern society can be read with double entendre: as Wharton is one of those she criticizes with glove hands and boiled-noodle whips.

A constant theme in this book is high class society's hypocrisy. And, one discussion between Archer and his law partner about women's rights -- most specifically Madame Olenska's attempt to exercise (what was then) exclusively male rights -- beautifully depicts how his liberal opinions jibe with his personal life -- one strewn in old fashioned and high browed morals. The greatest hypocrisy almost floors the reader with an ending which evidences Archer's decisions to be, as self-described, "old fashioned."

The topic is much like Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." However, comparisons of the authors must end soon thereafter. Their writing style is different and so are their books' respective messages - or at least the tone in which the messages are delivered. I prefer the midwesterner's style over the northeasterner's prose, but to each their own. This writer reminds me more of the her British contemporaries: Forster, Waugh or Murdoch. In any event, Wharton is a master, and has a handful of great novels from which any reader should be lucky enough to have time to read.

I chose The Age of Innocence because I had never read any Edith Wharton, and after I read To Marry an English Lord, I was keen on exploring the world depicted in that book: New York City society of the 1880s. To Marry an English Lord told of how Edith Wharton had been snubbed by society, and how she expressed her disdain for them by depicting these very people in her novels, giving these very real New Yorkers new names. The Age of Innocence is a fascinating look into this world. It is rich with exquisite details, from their obsession with clothes to their petty mindedness. Wharton's writing is beautifully done, and her characters are engaging, even when they are being nasty. There is humor, as well. And all this is wrapped up in a pretty package that moves right along at a pace that says "leisurely" while it reads "quickly." Wharton's storytelling seems lightning fast compared to her contemporary (and another of my favorite writers,) Henry James.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

I would like to give this book 4.5 stars. It is very good, but not outstandingly great. It paints a wholly believable picture of an era and the people who are part of that era. They do not rise above their times but are totally part of their world. The world of the upper crust of New York in the late nineteenth century is quite different than our world, but this novel breathes life into that world and the people who lived in that world. The author sees the characters as complete human beings and does not preach at us about their virtues or foibles. You and I probably have values that would be out of place in that world, but the book makes us believe in and understand a society that no longer exists.
The writing style is clear and well paced. It is a relatively easy read. It would actually make a good beach or airplane travel read, but it is a thousand times better than the typical forgettable stuff under that rubrik.

The Age of Innocence
Edith, Wharton. “The Age of Innocence” published by Floating Press, c2010. Waiheke Island, 1920

The Age of Innocence takes place near the ending of World War. Let me remind you how devastating this war was. Edith Wharton now had been living as an expatriate in Paris for about five years. During this time is Paris she wrote novels that were fiction, and helped refugees with relief from the war. She was a very passionate individual with high drive which led her to being nominated for the French Legion Honor, which she won. She was disturbed by what she saw from the war and continued to write about it. In which led to her being known as a war novelist.
The Age of Innocence takes place at the ending of the First World War. Edith Warton published the book in 1920. Edith was brought up in a lovely household with parents who were known for their lavish parties. She was born into a family with a great selection of privileges such as, marriage, education and traveling. She becomes unhappily married at a young age to a man thirteen years older than her. She finds herself facing adultery and the temptations it with holds. Which she mentions in her writing in “The Age of Innocence.”
In the story Archer a young lawyer finds himself in a new engagement with a beautiful woman by the name of May Welland. He is having troubles coping with the often visits from her family, her cousin Countess Ellen Olenska. Countess just returned from American where she had recently left her husband. She is outspoken and tends to shock people with her manners, and rumors of adultery. Archer grows to known Countess and appreciates her views on New York City.
Meanwhile in the book, he begins to feel differently about his new fiancée Welland. He begins to look at her as a manufactured product of etiquette. Countess mentions that she is going to divorce her husband and Archer supports her decision, but believes she should remain married. After Archer and Mays honeymoon in Europe they return to the marry life in New York. Later in the story Ellen is reunited with her husband where he asks for her return and she refuses, which Archer later discovers. Ellen’s grandmother had a stroke where she returned to New York to help care for her. Archer and Ellen agree to perfect their affair but suddenly she is leaving. Ellen returns to Europe but before May threw her a farewell party. After the party, May Welland mentions to Archer that she is pregnant and announced the news to Ellen two weeks prior.
Twenty-five years have passed by in that time the Archers had three children and May had passed away from pneumonia. Archer has decided to travel to France since the passing of his wife, he was convinced by his son to travel. They travel to Paris which they have arranged to meet with Countess. At the last minute of the arrangements Archer does the unthinkable and sends his son alone to visit her. Leaving what memories, the two had shared in the past.

References:
Edith, Wharton. “The Age of Innocence” published by Floating Press, c2010. Waiheke Island, 1920.
Saint John’s Rivers State Library Esources.

Eighteenth century American "high" society is shown in this subtly uncomfortable, at times merciless novel by Wharton. It explores the unwanted, inevitable, but, in the end, understandable change that occured within a young man on the verge of being married.

On the onset, everything seemed headed for bliss: perfect fiancee, stable prospects, and a comfortable yet predictable soon-to-be married life. But then he meets the Countess Olenska, cousin of his betrothed. This epitome of eccentricity (and source of ignominy of her relatives) becomes strangely alluring to him, what with her unconventional looks, manner of dressing, chosen companions, and overall lifestyle.

As his interactions with her become more frequent, he finds his fiancee somehow paling in comparison next to the vibrancy of the Countess. He becomes disdainful of the ridiculousness with which young men and women are brought up into their glittering society, and who will no doubt foster the same beliefs and traditions to their sons and daughters. As his life and everything he was taught at birth ostensibly comes crashing down upon him, he discovers his attraction to the Countess grow into passionate love. But these two lovers are mired into a world that would shun their relationship: the Countess at the very least is still very much married, and Archer is still very much engaged to be so...

This novel is a veritable force to be reckoned with (though it was tough gaining momentum on the first few pages). Not only does it explore the many intricacies in romantic love, it sheds a blinding light on the ways society draws its defenses around itself, constructs rules and traditions to be followed for the continuation of its existence, and in turn drowns out the very foundations of reason. There is subtlety in the way the author exposed a society so caught up in the world they have built around itself that it becomes blind to change and is still, in so many ways, innocent in its need to keep itself closeted from things both severely chaotic and beautiful that make up the inherent human experience.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

The Age of Innocence is about Newland Archer, an indifferent lawyer who is engaged to the prim and proper May Welland but secretly develops the hots for her independent, fiery cousin Ellen Olenska. Their feelings intensify only in bits and pieces, for their stifling social world would never look well upon an engaged man having an affair with a woman of already questionable repute. As they grow closer they are driven further apart, both by custom and by human manipulation, all of which are far from innocent.

The Age of Innocence is many things- biting social satire, sharp-edged character study, and a sympathetic observation of one of the most constricted romances in the history of literature. It is also an incredibly entertaining book, with sentence after elegant sentence finely constructing this little world of turn-of-the-century upper-crust New York that is now far gone. It is also a complete work; at its end I felt completely satisfied because nothing was left out, no relevant nuance or character unexplored, its themes illuminated just enough and nothing feeling out of place. From the pomp and circumstance of the beginning, to the desire and betrayal of the middle, to the suitably haunting conclusion, this is simply a perfect book and I couldn't imagine American lit without it. Highly recommended for anyone.

Because I hope to visit Wharton's home in upstate New York this fall, I wanted to read one of her books before going. Since this won a Pulitzer, I picked it. I found it very engaging in describing the life style of a certain class of people in a certain period of time in a particular city, New York. While the much of the book was predictable given the restraints of that time, the ending had a bit of a surprise. It is so unlike the fast paced fiction of today and instead took time to develop the characters, some intellectually astute, some vacuous, some just endearing. If it hadn't been quite so predictable, I would have given it Five Stars.

Nobody knew the hypocrises of "old New York" better than Edith Wharton, and nobody portrayed them as well. In "The Age of Innocence," Wharton took readers on a trip through the stuffy upper crust of 1870s New York, wrapped up in a hopeless love affair.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating count husband. At first, the two are friends, but then they become something more.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and a safe, dull life?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when J.Lo acquires and discards boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose. Probably it wasn't in the 1920s, when the book was first published. But this isn't a book to read if you appreciate sexiness and steam -- instead it's a social satire, a bittersweet romance, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Wharton brings old New York to life in this book -- opulent, beautiful, cultured, yet empty and kind of boring. It is "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought," so tied up in tradition that nobody there really lives. And even though the unattainable countess is beautiful and sweet, it becomes obvious after awhile that Newland is actually in love with the idea of breaking out of his conventional life.

Wharton's writing is a bit like a giant rosebud -- it takes forever to fully open. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms and gloves. Wharton put them in to illustrate her point about New York at that time, and all the stories about different families, scandals and customs are actually very important.

Newland seems like a rather boring person, since he only has brief bursts of individuality. But he gets more interesting when he struggles between his conscience and his longing for freedom. May is (suitably) pallid and a bit dull, while the Countess is alluringly mysterious and unconsciously rebellious. The fact that she doesn't TRY to rebel makes her far more interesting than Newland.

"Age of Innocence" considered a story about a man in love with an unattainable woman, but it's also about that man straining against a stagnant, hypocritical society. Rich, intriguing and beautifully written.

It was a glittering, sumptuous time when hypocrisy was expected, discreet infidelity tolerated, and unconventionality ostracized.

That is the Gilded Age, and nobody knew its hypocrises better than Edith Wharton.... and nobody portrayed them as well. "The Age of Innocence" is a trip back in time to the stuffy upper crust of "old New York," taking us through one respectable man's hopeless love affair with a beautiful woman -- and the life he isn't brave enough to have.

Newland Archer, of a wealthy old New York family, has become engaged to pretty, naive May Welland. But as he tries to get their wedding date moved up, he becomes acquainted with May's exotic cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, who has returned home after dumping her cheating husband. At first, the two are just friends, but Newland becomes more and more entranced by the Countess' easy, free-spirited European charm.

After Newland marries May, the attraction to the mysterious Countess and her free, unconventional life becomes even stronger. He starts to rebel in little ways, but he's still mired in a 100% conventional marriage, job and life. Will he become an outcast and go away with the beautiful countess, or will he stick with May and the safe, dull life that he has condemned in others?

There's nothing too scandalous about "Age of Innocence" in a time when starlets acquire and discard boyfriends and husbands like old pantyhose -- it probably wasn't in the 1920s when it was first published. But then, this isn't a book about sexiness and steam -- it's part bittersweet romance, part social satire, and a look at what happens when human beings lose all spontaneity and passion.

Part of this is due to Wharton's portrayal of New York in the 1870s -- opulent, cultured, pleasant, yet so tied up in tradition that few people in it are able to really open up and live. It's a haze of ballrooms, gardens, engagements, and careful social rituals that absolutely MUST be followed, even if they have no meaning. It's a place "where the real thing was never said or done or even thought."

And Wharton writes distant, slightly mocking prose that outlines this sheltered little society. Her writing opens as slowly and beautifully as a rosebud, letting subtle subplots, poetic prose and powerful, hidden emotions drive the story. So don't be discouraged by the endless conversations about flowers, ballrooms, gloves and old family scandals that don't really matter anymore -- they are trappings to the story, and convey the stuffy life that Newland is struggling to escape.

In the middle of all this, Newland is a rather dull, intelligent young man who thinks he's unconventional. But he becomes more interesting as he struggles between his conscience and his longing for the Countess. And as "Age of Innocence" winds on, you gradually see that he doesn't truly love the Countess, but what she represents -- freedom from society and convention.

The other two angles of this love triangle are May and Ellen. May is (suitably) pallid and rather dull, though she shows some different sides in the last few chapters. And Ellen is a magnificent character -- alluring, mysterious, but also bewildered by New York's hostility to her ways. And she's even more interesting when you realize that she isn't trying to rebel, but simply being herself.

"Age of Innocence" is a subtle look at life in Gilded Age New York, telling the story of a man desperately in love with a way of life he hasn't got the courage to pursue. Exquisite in its details, painful in its beauty.

I believe the writer reflected her times and 1870's NY high society; so it is a period piece. The plot is well done with ironic twists. The title is perhaps a sarcasm. I am sure it is very well written because it won a Pulitzer Prize. However this novel lost me because I found I did not care one iota about any of the characters. They all seemed shallow and remote-- which was the point of the story-- but my 2016 personality could not plug in. When I came to the last page I said aloud, "Meah!" I think one would have to be more of a history buff and appreciate changes in society to get the full appreciation of the book.

Eighteenth century American "high" society is shown in this subtly uncomfortable, at times merciless novel by Wharton. It explores the unwanted, inevitable, but, in the end, understandable change that occured within a young man on the verge of being married.

On the onset, everything seemed headed for bliss: perfect fiancee, stable prospects, and a comfortable yet predictable soon-to-be married life. But then he meets the Countess Olenska, cousin of his betrothed. This epitome of eccentricity (and source of ignominy of her relatives) becomes strangely alluring to him, what with her unconventional looks, manner of dressing, chosen companions, and overall lifestyle.

As his interactions with her become more frequent, he finds his fiancee somehow paling in comparison next to the vibrancy of the Countess. He becomes disdainful of the ridiculousness with which young men and women are brought up into their glittering society, and who will no doubt foster the same beliefs and traditions to their sons and daughters. As his life and everything he was taught at birth ostensibly comes crashing down upon him, he discovers his attraction to the Countess grow into passionate love. But these two lovers are mired into a world that would shun their relationship: the Countess at the very least is still very much married, and Archer is still very much engaged to be so...

This novel is a veritable force to be reckoned with (though it was tough gaining momentum on the first few pages). Not only does it explore the many intricacies in romantic love, it sheds a blinding light on the ways society draws its defenses around itself, constructs rules and traditions to be followed for the continuation of its existence, and in turn drowns out the very foundations of reason. There is subtlety in the way the author exposed a society so caught up in the world they have built around itself that it becomes blind to change and is still, in so many ways, innocent in its need to keep itself closeted from things both severely chaotic and beautiful that make up the inherent human experience.

Newland Archer, the protagonist of Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, opens this story as an almost haughtily optimistic and self-satisfied young man - at the top of New York society, about to announce his engagement to the beautiful and sought-after May Welland, with little to mar what seems to be a life of uninterrupted happiness and fulfillment. Wealth, industry, friends, family, a fiancé he loves dearly....what more could a young man want from life? He can even afford to have a few radical ideas, one of them being the opinion that women should speak their minds and be genuine in their deportment and self-awareness, shaking off - just a little, perhaps - the stringent and elaborate rituals of conformity forced on them by a well-meaning but ultimately hypocritical society.

Despite the slightly smug impression we get of Archer at the beginning, it is this examination of himself that makes the reader realize there's more to him than most men of his age and class; that he possesses a sensitivity and longing for what is real, despite that reality's drawbacks, and it endears him to us. Early on he states, to the shock of his friend, that "Women should be free--as free as we are." Soon after, we get this insight into his mind as he reflects on what he sees around him in the marriages of his friends, parents, and relatives, which is precisely what he is determined to avoid between himself and May:

"What could he and she really know of each other, since it was his duty, as a "decent" fellow, to conceal his past from her, and hers, as a marriageable girl, to have no past to conceal? What if, for some one of the subtler reasons that would tell with both of them, they should tire of each other, misunderstand or irritate each other?

He reviewed his friends' marriages - the supposedly happy ones - and saw none that answered, even remotely, to the passionate and tender comradeship which he pictured as his permanent relation with May Welland. He perceived that such a picture presupposed, on her part, the experience, the versatility, the freedom of judgment, which she had been carefully trained not to possess; and with a shiver of foreboding he saw his marriage becoming what most of the other marriages about him were: a dull association of material and social interests held together by ignorance on the one side and hypocrisy on the other.

.....In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs."

So, this is where Archer is in life when May's cousin Ellen comes to New York from Paris, fleeing an illustriously-placed but disastrous marriage, and her entrance into New York society is tinged with scandal. When Archer falls in love with Ellen against all his better judgment and to what he knows would be the detriment of everything he deems crucial to his happiness, it's a torturous love that nearly drives him mad.

That description may make it sound like a forgettable bit of romance, but forgettable bits of romance don't generally win Pulitzers, and the true heart of this story is about the decisions we make that shape our lives one way or another, and what kind of devastating emotional havoc the `wrong' love can wreak on a person's soul. Archer is forced down an emotionally-tormented path few of us would choose, I think, and in many ways it's both beautiful and tragic to watch his story unfold. I was incredibly moved by it.

As mentioned, The Age of Innocence won Wharton the Pulizer Prize for fiction in 1921, making it the first time a woman had ever won the award.