{"product_id":"the-age-of-innocence-9780451530882","title":"The Age of Innocence","description":"\u003cb\u003eWinner of the first Pulitzer Prize ever awarded to a book written by a woman, \u003ci\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/i\u003e is a suspenseful, deeply moving, and brilliantly accomplished novel of the struggle between desire and destiny.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn the polished works of Edith Wharton, Old New York is a society at once infinitely sophisticated and ruthlessly primitive, in which adherence to ritual and loyalty to clan surpass all other values--and transgression is always punished. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/i\u003e is Wharton's 1920 novel of love menaced by convention, played out against a gorgeously arrayed backdrop of opera houses, lavish dinner parties, country homes, and luxurious deathbeds. The young lawyer Newland Archer believes that he must make an impossible choice: domesticity with his docile and lovely fiancée, May Welland, or passion with her highly unsuitable but irresistible cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska. What Newland does not suspect--but will learn--is that the women also hold cards in this game...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe upper stratum of New York society into which \u003cb\u003eEdith Wharton\u003c\/b\u003e was born in 1862 provided her with an abundance of material as a novelist but did not encourage her growth as an artist. Educated by tutors and governesses, she was raised for only one career: marriage. But her marriage, in 1885, to Edward Wharton was an emotional disappointment, if not a disaster. She suffered the first of a series of nervous breakdowns in 1894. In spite of the strain of her marriage, or perhaps because of it, she began to write fiction and published her first story in 1889. Her first published book was a guide to interior decorating, but this was followed by several novels and story collections. They were written while the Whartons lived in Newport and New York, traveled in Europe, and built their grand home, the Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts. In Europe, she met Henry James, who became her good friend, traveling companion, and the sternest but most careful critic of her fiction. \u003ci\u003eThe House of Mirth\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e(1905) was both a resounding critical success and a bestseller, as was \u003ci\u003eEthan Frome\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e(1911). In 1913 the Whartons were divorced, and Edith took up permanent residence in France. Her subject, however, remained America, especially the moneyed New York of her youth. Her great satiric novel, \u003ci\u003eThe Custom of the Country\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003ewas published in 1913 and \u003ci\u003eThe Age of Innocence\u003c\/i\u003e won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. In her later years, she enjoyed the admiration of a new generation of writers, including Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In all, she wrote some 30 books, including an autobiography, \u003ci\u003eA Backward Glance\u003c\/i\u003e (1934). She died at her villa near Paris in 1937. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRegina Barreca \u003c\/b\u003eis a professor of English and feminist theory at the University of Connecticut. She is the editor of seven books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Penguin Book of Women's Humor\u003c\/i\u003e, and the author of four others. She writes frequently for the \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eChicago Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eHartford Courant\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eJudith P. Saunders \u003c\/b\u003eis a writer known for \u003ci\u003eReading Edith Wharton Through a Darwinian Lens: Evolutionary Biological Issues in Her Fiction, Lost Partners, The Age of Innocence\u003c\/i\u003e, and more. She is a professor of American Literature at Marist College in New York.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Signet Book","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50912503103762,"sku":"9780451530882","price":5.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_a1e71893-cbb2-4480-b03c-1a2056621edc.jpg?v=1749038551","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-age-of-innocence-9780451530882","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}