The Age of Innocence: An Essential Classic Literature Satire of Elite New York Society

HarperCollins is proud to present our range of timeless literary classics.There they were, close together and safe and shut in; yet so chained to their separate destinies that they might as well been half the world apart.Newland Archer, a successful and charming young lawyer, conducts himself by the dictates of polite New York society. Happily engaged to the beautiful and respectable May Welland, his place in the rigid world of the Elite is secured. That is, until the arrival of May’s scandalous cousin, Countess Olenska, throws Newland’s life upside down.Adapted many times for stage and screen, Edith Wharton offers a rich and evocative critique of the hypocrisy of America’s Gilded Age. Comedic, subtle and cynical in style, The Age of Innocence is a masterful portrait of a man torn between his duty and his desire. Read more