Although beautiful Lily Bart comes from a privileged background, she has fallen into poverty. The world she knows is changing with the advent of "new money." On the one hand she craves a life of luxury; on the other, she wants a relationship that will offer her real love. Her downward social trajectory begins when she rejects several proposals and falls in love with a man, Lawrence Selden, who lacks money and vacillates about marriage. Various unfortunate decisions--including her inadvertent acceptance of money from the unscrupulous husband of a friend--further hasten her social decline and may even lead to huge scandal.