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Product Description
Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”
This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it.
Maureen Howard is a critic, teacher, and writer of fiction. Her seven novels include Bridgeport Bus, Natural History, and A Lover’s Almanac. Her memoir, Facts of Life, won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award. She has taught at Yale and Columbia University.
Customer Review: Love, Loneliness and the Strictures of Society.
Imagine living in a world where life is governed by intricate rituals; a world "balanced so precariously that its harmony [can] be shattered by a whisper" (Wharton); a world ruled by self-declared experts on form, propriety and family history - read: scandal -; where everything is labeled and yet, people are not; where in order not to disturb society's smooth surface nothing is ever expressed or even thought of directly, and where communication occurs almost exclusively by way of symbols, which are unknown to the outsider and, like any secret code, by their very encryption guarantee his or her permanent exclusion.
Such, in faithful imitation of Victorian England, was the society of late 19th century upper class New York. Into this society returns, after having grown up and lived all her adult life in Europe, American-born Countess Ellen Olenska, after leaving a cruel and uncaring husband. She already causes scandal by the mere manner of her return; but not knowing the secret rituals of the society she has entered, she quickly brings herself further into disrepute by receiving an unmarried man, by being seen in the company of a man only tolerated by virtue of his financial success and his marriage to the daughter of one of this society's most respected families, by arriving late to a dinner in which she has expressly been included to rectify a prior general snub, by leaving a drawing room conversation to instead join a gentleman sitting by himself - and worst of all, by openly contemplating divorce, which will most certainly open up a whole Pandora's box of "oddities" and "unpleasantness:" the strongest terms ever used to express moral disapproval in this particular social context. Soon Ellen, who hasn't seen such façades even in her husband's household, finds herself isolated and, wondering whether noone is ever interested in the truth, complains bitterly that "[t]he real loneliness here is living among all these kind people who only ask you to pretend."
Ellen finds a kindred soul in attorney Newland Archer, her cousin May Welland's fiancé, who secretly toys with a more liberal stance, while outwardly endorsing the value system of the society he lives in. Newland and Ellen fall in love - although not before he has advised her, on his employer's and May and Ellen's family's mandate, not to pursue her plans of divorce. As a result, Ellen becomes unreachable to him, and he flees into accelerating his wedding plans with May, who before he met Ellen in his eyes stood for everything that was good and noble about their society, whereas now he begins to see her as a shell whose interior he is reluctant to explore for fear of finding merely a kind of serene emptiness there; a woman whose seemingly dull, passive innocence grinds down every bit of roughness he wants to maintain about himself and who, as he realizes even before marrying her, will likely bury him alive under his own future. Then his passion for Ellen is rekindled by a meeting a year and a half after his wedding, and an emotional conflict they could hardly bear when he was not yet married escalates even further. And only when it is too late for all three of them he finds out that his wife had far more insight (and almost ruthless cleverness) than he had ever credited her with.
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize and the first work of fiction written by a woman to be awarded that distinction, "The Age of Innocence" is one of Edith Wharton's most enduringly popular novels; the crown jewel among her subtly satirical descriptions of New York upper class society. By far not as overtly condemning and cynical as the earlier "House of Mirth" (for which Wharton reportedly even saw this later work as a sort of apology), "The Age of Innocence" is a masterpiece of characterization and social study alike: an intricate canvas painted by a master storyteller who knew the society which she described inside out, and who, even though she had moved to France (where she would continue living for the rest of her life) almost a decade earlier, was able to delineate late 19th century New York society's every nuance in pitch-perfect detail, while at the same time - seemingly without any effort at all - also blending together all these minute details into an impeccably composed ensemble that will stay with the reader long after he has turned the last page.
Also recommended:
Wharton: Four Novels (Library of America College Editions)
Edith Wharton: Vol 1. Collected Stories:1891-1910 (Library of America)
Edith Wharton: Vol.2 Collected Stories 1911-1937 (Library of America)
Henry James : Novels 1881-1886: Washington Square, The Portrait of a Lady, The Bostonians (Library of America)
Henry James: Novels 1901-1902: The Sacred Fount / The Wings of the Dove (Library of America)
Ethan Frome
The House of Mirth
Washington Square
The Portrait of a Lady
The Wings of the Dove
Customer Review: Relates to today
Even given the time in which it was written, Innocence still has relevance today. I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy the book, but it is described as a classic and I'll give any book a try. To my surprise I enjoyed the book immensely. I did struggle with terminology that is no longer used today, but the over all themes of love and choosing between happiness and obligations/responsibility/public appearance are ones we can relate to in the present. For people today it may not necessarily be choosing between two women/men, but rather love and career and the resentment you might feel over choosing one over the other.
The book can make readers feel anger, but also understanding towards the male character. I would hope I would be my spouses Olenska and not his May.
Customer Review: The age of Innocense
The product arrived a month after order for a book club. It was returned. The general service by Amazon is TERRIBlE.
Customer Review: Wharton's Masterpiece
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.
Customer Review: a perfect world gone awry....
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.
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