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Edith Wharton
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The Age of Innocence (Xist Classics) Kindle Edition

by Edith Wharton (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 out of 5 stars 6,035 ratings
Editors' pick Hand-selected reads
“We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?” ― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

The Age of Innocence was the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Edith Wharton's novel centers around 1870's New York society, scandal and social structure.

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    1. ISBN-13
      978-1623958671
    2. Publisher
      Xist Classics
    3. Accessibility
      Learn more
    4. Publication date
      30 Mar. 2015
    5. Language
      English
    6. File size
      763 KB
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    Product description

    About the Author

    Edith Wharton

    Product details

    • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00VAOUGUE
    • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Xist Classics
    • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
    • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 30 Mar. 2015
    • Language ‏ : ‎ English
    • File size ‏ : ‎ 763 KB
    • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
    • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
    • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
    • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
    • Print length ‏ : ‎ 209 pages
    • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1623958671
    • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
    • Customer reviews:
      4.1 out of 5 stars 6,035 ratings

    About the authors

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    1. Edith Wharton

      Edith Wharton

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    2. George Eliot

      George Eliot

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      Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 - 22 December 1880; alternatively "Mary Anne" or "Marian"), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871-72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.

      She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. She also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.

      Her 1872 work Middlemarch has been described by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language.

      Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Swiss artist Alexandre-Louis-François d'Albert-Durade (1804-86) [Public Domain], via English Wikipedia.

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    Customer reviews

    4.1 out of 5 stars
    6,035 global ratings

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    Customers say

    Customers find this book to be a classic that they enjoy re-reading, praising its insightful story and beautifully subtle observations. The readability receives mixed feedback - while some find it eloquently written, others report issues with garbled text and strange syntax. Moreover, the pacing is positive, with one customer describing it as a beautiful study of human character and emotions. However, the book receives criticism for being repetitive and hard to follow, with one customer noting the lack of clear heroes or villains in the character development.

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    57 customers mention ‘Readability’42 positive15 negative

    Customers find the book highly readable, describing it as brilliant and a marvel of literature that they enjoy re-reading from time to time.

    "...finely drawn characterisation and her descriptions of a grand and intricately lovely setting, but what she truly portrays through the beauty is the..." Read more

    "...All in all, I found this a beautifully written and very engaging read and, like the author's ' The House of Mirth', is one that I..." Read more

    "...It is beautiful. I will read this again, it is part of a very small group in that...." Read more

    "...It is subtle and to be fair rather unexciting and lacking a certain passionate realism for me..." Read more

    22 customers mention ‘Story quality’22 positive0 negative

    Customers enjoy the story of the book, finding it delightful and insightful, with one customer describing it as a beautiful study of human character and emotions, while another notes its vivid dissection of American society.

    "...What is fascinating about the novel, for me, is how nothing portrayed is at all as it seems, and yet there are never any glaring or obvious..." Read more

    "...The story is remarkably simple: Newland Archer is on the cusp of getting engaged to May Welland when he sees and fancies the married but estranged..." Read more

    "...Her characters are believable creations whose personalities develop through the course of the story and although, at the outset of the novel we..." Read more

    "...The novel gripped me from start to finish - the characters are brilliantly brought to life. You feel for them all - Newland, May and Ellen...." Read more

    7 customers mention ‘Pacing’7 positive0 negative

    Customers appreciate the pacing of the book, noting its beautifully subtle and vividly moving narrative, with one customer highlighting its finely drawn characterizations.

    "The Age of Innocence is a work of beautifully subtle observation and delicacy, but though Edith Wharton paints with pastels, she delivers a vividly..." Read more

    "...I really like the understated classic nature of this book. It is subtle and to be fair rather unexciting and lacking a certain passionate realism..." Read more

    "...As so often with Wharton the ending is inevitable, and intensely moving. The writer lets what happens happen...." Read more

    "A marvel of literature, this book captured me with its delicacy of observation and its mastery of the English language...." Read more

    3 customers mention ‘Era’3 positive0 negative

    Customers appreciate how the book captures its time period, with one noting its evocative portrayal and another mentioning its nostalgic value.

    "...The movie adaptation of this novel just enhanced the era and the setting the story took place and gives readers a much more graphic image of that..." Read more

    "dated but evocative of its time" Read more

    "Nostalgia and charm..." Read more

    33 customers mention ‘Readable text’16 positive17 negative

    Customers have mixed opinions about the readability of the text, with some finding it eloquently written and the best use of English, while others report that the text is garbled, has strange syntax, and appears to be a bad translation from a foreign language.

    "Do not buy this version of Age of Innocence. It is an appalling translation that is completely unreadable. It just does not make sense...." Read more

    "...The well written tale is about the moving legs under the serene swan...." Read more

    "...The Kindle version that I received is appalling. The sentences do not make sense and are not as Edith Wharton wrote...." Read more

    "...All in all, I found this a beautifully written and very engaging read and, like the author's ' The House of Mirth', is one that I..." Read more

    6 customers mention ‘Make sense’0 positive6 negative

    Customers find the book difficult to understand and follow.

    "...It just does not make sense. I now have to buy another edition for my book group read...." Read more

    "This is not Wharton’s best. I found it very hard going as it lacks the beauty and characterisation of “ Ethane Frome” and “The House of Mirth”,..." Read more

    "...At times a bit repetitive & hard to follow with all the various different named families involved...." Read more

    "Doesn’t make sense. Words have ben transposed and replaced so the whole thing is a nonsense...." Read more

    4 customers mention ‘Story length’0 positive4 negative

    Customers find the story length negative, with several noting it is repetitive, and one customer describing it as a long-winded tale of lost love.

    "...At times a bit repetitive & hard to follow with all the various different named families involved...." Read more

    "Very much of its time! Quite repetitive, not a lot happening but interesting to learn about society at the time; it’s privileges and limitations,..." Read more

    "...It was a long winded story of lost love and doing the right thing." Read more

    "...However,once understood the rules of that society the story becomes somewhat predictable for me. I have enjoyed reading it and I would recommend it." Read more

    3 customers mention ‘Character development’0 positive3 negative

    Customers have mixed reactions to the character development in the book, with one customer finding the characters snobbish and another noting a lack of clear heroes or villains.

    "...The novel is intensely bittersweet, and there are no clear heroes or villains, only individual strengths and weaknesses operating in an environment..." Read more

    "...the 'society' set of late 19th century New York and the characters are all a bit snobbish and vacuous, which is to be expected, there would be no..." Read more

    "This book left me quite cold - i had no feeling for the characters They were cold and left me cold -" Read more

    SCAM EDiTiON - Not the original text
    1 out of 5 stars
    SCAM EDiTiON - Not the original text
    This edition is a terrible scam. It should not be on Kindle. It is NOT the wonderful book written by Edith Wharton, but some colloquial re-writing of the same book with terrible grammar and language. I had to purchase another copy, because I could not read the text of this version. I was outraged. Never came across this type of scam before, but next time I will be much more careful with what version I am purchasing. There is no indication in the description, whatsoever that it may be some re-worked version of the original.
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    Top reviews from United Kingdom

    • captive8122@hotmail.com
      5.0 out of 5 stars The emptiness behind the curtain...
      Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 March 2007
      Verified Purchase
      The Age of Innocence is a work of beautifully subtle observation and delicacy, but though Edith Wharton paints with pastels, she delivers a vividly moving and meaningful fable on the damage society can inflict on the individual spirit.

      What is fascinating about the novel, for me, is how nothing portrayed is at all as it seems, and yet there are never any glaring or obvious revelations or realisations - Wharton creates an environment in which everything is so delicately balanced that the tiniest ripple can assume seismic proportions. Newland Archer, a slave to respectability, and yet a closet dreamer, sees the beauty of the society he lives in, and its hypocrisy, but he never fully appreciates the strength of its ties and strictures until he finds himself drawn to the lovely Ellen Olenska, who symbolises, for him, a freedom and daring that he has never known. His affianced bride, May Welland, pales in comparison - to him she is merely an obedient ornament, a 'curtain dropped before an emptiness,' but he never realises the strength that lies underneath her apparent frailty. It is the steel in May Welland's character that is one of the most interesting aspects of the novel; Ellen Olenska outwardly appears to be a strong, free spirit, who shuns convention, but she is buffeted and bruised by the society that the delicate May Welland represents. May sees far more than Newland ever credits her for, and it seems that his journey through the novel is chiefly about the gradual realisation of all that he has missed. Newland is perhaps the only true innocent in the world he inhabits.

      The novel is intensely bittersweet, and there are no clear heroes or villains, only individual strengths and weaknesses operating in an environment where society itself is the deity that controls all. There is real beauty in Wharton's finely drawn characterisation and her descriptions of a grand and intricately lovely setting, but what she truly portrays through the beauty is the bleak emptiness of a world where souls are sacrificed in order to maintain the sham of society's smooth and polished surface.
      75 people found this helpful
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    • H. Tee
      4.0 out of 5 stars The affair of him not having an affair whilst family make it their affair in preventing the affair which he's not having.
      Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 November 2017
      Verified Purchase
      This is the Pulitzer prize winning novel of 1920. It is centred in 1870s New York when form, etiquette and, family and social propriety were the norm. The story is remarkably simple: Newland Archer is on the cusp of getting engaged to May Welland when he sees and fancies the married but estranged Countess Olenska recently back from Europe. The well written tale is about the moving legs under the serene swan. Nothing actually happens really; but it is what is later realised by Archer as his thoughts and actions are managed by his family that makes the tale interesting.

      Some quotes:
      “The real loneliness is living among all these kind people who only ask one to pretend.”

      “Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of a duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.”

      And the one that virtually sums up the whole novel:- “The innocence that seals the mind against imagination and the heart against experience”.

      I really like the understated classic nature of this book. It is subtle and to be fair rather unexciting and lacking a certain passionate realism for me

      As a general note for the reader early on it is suggested that a secretary helped Olenska to leave her husband with certain implications – as a note it would seem secretaries were male at that time.
      5 people found this helpful
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    • SusannahB
      5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautifully Written and Perceptively Observed Story
      Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 June 2017
      Verified Purchase
      In Edith Wharton's twelfth novel 'The Age of Innocence', we meet Archer Newland, a young lawyer living in New York in the 1870s, who has been looking forward to his marriage to the naive and lovely May Welland, a society beauty whose sheltered upbringing and training has turned her into a young woman destined to become the perfect wife and mother. However, despite Archer's appreciation of May's quiet charms, he soon begins to find her strict adherence to society's rules and conventions and her unadventurous spirit rather frustrating and limiting - especially when he meets her cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, an exotic and intriguing woman, who has scandalously left her husband in Europe and whose independent outlook on life forces Archer to question the narrow confines of his. Before long, Archer has fallen in love with Ellen, but nevertheless goes ahead with the wedding; however each time he meets the Countess Olenska, he finds it difficult to control his feelings, especially as Ellen shows that she is attracted to him as much as he is to her. Does Archer manage to suppress his deep desire for Ellen and dutifully stand by his marriage vows, or does he decide to disregard the rules of society and leave his conventional life behind him? Obviously I must leave that for those who have yet to read the book to learn for themselves.

      In this novel, which was first published in 1920 and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, Edith Wharton deftly paints a convincing portrait of upper-class New York society of the 1870s with its rigid code of conduct and its many hypocrisies, and the narrative is littered with Ms Wharton's perceptive observations of the society in which she grew up. Her characters are believable creations whose personalities develop through the course of the story and although, at the outset of the novel we might find ourselves sympathizing with May in her innocence, we soon begin to see that she is not as innocent or guileless as she initially seems and that when she needs to be she can be designing and manipulative - whilst conversely, we see the apparently less moralistic Ellen Olenska behaving in more admirable manner than her detractors might suppose she would - but I cannot explain further without revealing spoilers. All in all, I found this a beautifully written and very engaging read and, like the author's 'The House of Mirth', is one that I would be happy to revisit in the future.

      5 Stars.
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    Top reviews from other countries

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    • LC
      5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting, beautifully written
      Reviewed in Canada on 16 March 2025
      Verified Purchase
      Classic , worth reading and enjoying. Storyline, language, captures the imagination as well as essence of those times. Would recommend
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    • Carla
      5.0 out of 5 stars Bien
      Reviewed in Spain on 12 January 2018
      Verified Purchase
      Todo muy correcto y muy rápido. Tal y como pone en el anuncio. Volvería a comprar este artículo otra vez
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    • Cliente Amazon
      5.0 out of 5 stars Une jolie plume
      Reviewed in France on 14 May 2020
      Verified Purchase
      J'ai découvert la plume d'Edith Wharton avec ce roman.
      Une jolie lecture, la romance qui se tisse entre les deux personnages est intéressante et on a toujours envie d'en lire plus. Cependant, le rythme se tarit parfois et le récit souffre de quelques longueurs.
      Malgré tout, j'ai rapidement été emportée par l'histoire et par cette société New Yorkaise tentant tant bien que mal de se cacher derrière des convenances viellissantes.
      Report
    • Andrea
      5.0 out of 5 stars Un grande classico, una grande storia d'amore.
      Reviewed in Italy on 22 July 2024
      Verified Purchase
      Consigliato a chiunque voglia immergersi nelle atmosfere tipiche dell'America della Ricostruzione. Un grande classico, una grande storia d'amore che non smette mai di esercitare il suo fascino.
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      Andrea
      5.0 out of 5 stars
      Un grande classico, una grande storia d'amore.

      Reviewed in Italy on 22 July 2024
      Consigliato a chiunque voglia immergersi nelle atmosfere tipiche dell'America della Ricostruzione. Un grande classico, una grande storia d'amore che non smette mai di esercitare il suo fascino.
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    • Ghoulygirl
      5.0 out of 5 stars I quite enjoyed reading this book
      Reviewed in India on 6 August 2016
      Verified Purchase
      I quite enjoyed reading this book. I do enjoy history and reading novels of this period gives you a great insight of the way of life. I have purchased a number of these books now. The maroon cover is lovely, the red satin ribbon page marker is just nice. Again I will have to say that the company printing these books in India need to take more care in their products. The print changes, its crooked, it goes from light to dark. A suggestion would be when you receive these books is to look through them before the return cut off date. Apart from that, I would recommend the read.
      Report

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