Age of Innocence : Authoritative Text, Background and Contexts, Sources, Criticism

The text of Wharton’s richly allusive Pulitzer Prize–winning 1921 novel of desire and its implications in Old New York has been rigorously annotated by a prominent Wharton scholar.

"Contexts" constructs the historical foundation for this very historical novel. Many documents are included on the "New York Four Hundred," elite social gatherings, archery (the sport for upper-crust daughters), as well as Wharton’s manuscript outlines, letters, and related writings.

"Criticism" collects eleven American and British contemporary reviews and nine major essays on The Age of Innocence, including a groundbreaking piece on the two film adaptations of the novel.

“A Chronology and Selected Bibliography” are also included.

Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer and designer Edith Wharton (1862-1937) is the author of The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, The Decoration of Houses, and many other books.

Candance Waid is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she teaches American literature with a focus on race and regional cultures. She is the author of Edith Wharton’s Letters from the Underworld: Fictions of Women and Writing and is the editor of Wharton’s novels, short stories, and autobiography. She previously taught at Yale University and at the Sorbonne.