The Age of Innocence

Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader.

The Age of Innocence (winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize), is a tale of desire and betrayal, set in the golden age of 1920s New York. It tells the story of Newland Archer, a rich lawyer from an aristocratic family, happily engaged to society beauty May Welland. The complex, social constructs of their lives are thrown into disarray, however, with the arrival of May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, into their gilded circle. Ellen, recently separated from her dissolute Polish count husband, is everything that May is not – carefree, unconventional, artistic, and Archer falls hopelessly in love with her. Caught between his passion for Ellen and his duty to May, Archer has to make a decision between the women that will determine the rest of their lives.

The FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library.

Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York aristocracy; to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. She was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1921 and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

Judith John (Glossary) is a writer and editor specializing in literature and history. She has worked as an editor on major educational projects, including English A: Literature for the Pearson International Baccalaureate series. Judith’s major research interests include Romantic and Gothic literature, and Renaissance drama.