The Age of Innocence (1st)

Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence depicts with masterful irony and nostalgic detail a vanished world-the glittering, elite society of "Gilded Age" New York-at the height of its power and on the brink of its demise. When Newland Archer's comfortable future is thrown into uncertainty by the arrival of the brazenly unconventional Ellen Olenska, subtle consequences unfold as Wharton's characters navigate conflicts of passion and propriety, demonstrating the genius of a great American novelist "at the top of her game" (Ta-Nehisi Coates).