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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s 1920 novel about Newland Archer, a young lawyer caught between his engagement to May Welland and his growing attachment to May’s cousin, Ellen Olenska. Set among New York’s upper class in the 1870s, it traces how family loyalty, reputation and social convention shape the characters’ private choices.
What is The Age of Innocence about?
Newland Archer expects to marry May Welland and follow the path set out for him by his family and social circle. That future becomes less certain when Ellen Olenska returns from Europe after a troubled marriage. Archer is drawn to Ellen, but his feelings unfold in a community where appearances, family ties and accepted behavior carry real consequences.
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The Age of Innocence | $9.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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Age of Innocence (Wordsworth Classics) | $6.41 | Buy on Amazon |
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The Age of Innocence (Warbler Classics Annotated Edition) | $9.99 | Buy on Amazon |
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(The Age of Innocence) By Wharton, Edith (Author) Paperback on 01-Mar-1996 | $14.52 | Buy on Amazon |
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The Age of Innocence: Original Version | $8.99 | Buy on Amazon |
Wharton’s subject is not simply a romance interrupted by convention. The novel examines how a tightly ordered society influences what its members can say, choose and do. Its social rituals and loyalty to clan can seem orderly and protective, yet the pressure to conform also limits individual freedom. The title’s “innocence” is best considered in that context: it invites readers to look closely at the society’s assumptions and manners rather than taking them as proof that its world is morally innocent.
Who are Newland Archer, May Welland and Ellen Olenska?
| Character | Role in the story |
|---|---|
| Newland Archer | A wealthy young lawyer engaged to May. His attraction to Ellen unsettles the future he had anticipated. |
| May Welland | Archer’s fiancée and Ellen’s cousin, positioned within the same family and social world that governs the couple’s expectations. |
| Ellen Olenska | May’s cousin, recently returned from Europe after a troubled marriage. Her presence brings Archer’s feelings and the community’s conventions into conflict. |
Their positions are not interchangeable. Archer must reckon with the gap between his private feelings and his expected public role; Ellen’s return makes her a subject of scrutiny; and May is part of the family and social structure in which the engagement takes place. Reading their different degrees of choice and agency helps keep the novel’s conflict from becoming a simple contest between “love” and “duty.”
#1 Best Overall
When was the novel published, and what prize did it win?
The Age of Innocence was published in October 1920. The Mount records that it became a bestseller and describes Wharton’s evocation of a time and place she knew. Her friend Walter Berry reportedly responded: “Yes; it’s good. But of course you and I are the only people who will ever read it,” referring to that remembered world. The Mount’s account of the novel provides publication context.
In 1921, Wharton’s novel won the Pulitzer Prize in the category then called Novel. The category was renamed Fiction in 1947. There is an important distinction in the award’s history: according to the official Pulitzer record, the jury favored Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, but the Pulitzer board selected Wharton’s book. The prize should therefore not be described as the jury’s recommendation.
Rank #2
The Pulitzer account also reproduces Wharton’s response to Lewis after learning of the award: “When I discovered that I was being rewarded — by one of our leading Universities — for uplifting American morals, I confess I did despair. Subsequently, when I found the prize shd really have been yours, but was withdrawn because your book (I quote from memory) had ‘offended a number of prominent persons in the Middle West,’ disgust was added to despair.” The account cites The New Republic of June 22, 1921, and Pulitzer Prize files.
Where can you read The Age of Innocence?
Project Gutenberg provides free electronic formats and states that the text is public domain in the United States. The book is also available in a distinct print edition: Penguin Random House lists a Signet mass-market paperback, ISBN 9780451530882, published March 4, 2008, with 336 pages. Current stock and price can vary.
Is there a film adaptation?
Yes. The Pulitzer account identifies a 1993 film adaptation starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder. The existence of the film is established; its current availability on any particular streaming service is not.
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