The Age Of Innocence

Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was originally published in 1920. Set in gaslit 1870s New York, where society people "dread scandal more than disease," Newland Archer is deeply troubled. Content to wed the beautiful and proper May Welland, Newland is drawn to the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska, a mysterious and challenging woman with a tainted past. To follow such a woman would mean giving up his family, his name, and, most important, his place in New York society.