One of Edith Wharton's most famous novels – the first by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize – exquisitely details a tragic struggle between love and responsibility during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people „dreaded scandal more than disease". Newland Archer, a restrained young attorney, is engaged to the lovely May Welland but falls in love with May's beautiful and unconventional cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska who returns to New York after a disastrous marriage to a Polish count. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life or mercilessly destroy it. An incisive look at the ways desire and emotion must negotiate the complex rules of society, „The Age of Innocence" is one of Wharton's most moving works.