The Age of Innocence: With 17 Illustrations and a Free Online Audio File. Kindle Edition

In an era before the advent of electric lights, telephones or motor vehicles, there exists a small cluster of aristocratic "old revolutionary stock" families that rule New York's social life. Under the rules of this society, outward appearances come at the exclusion of everything else. Newly engaged couple, Newland Archer, a young lawyer, and May Welland, a society debutante, are part of the old world, where the "right people" follow the "correct rules" and marry into "acceptable families." The arrival from Europe of May’s cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, complicates their union, as Ellen’s mysterious past threatens to cast a shadow of scandal over the newly betrothed couple. Will he cast off the life for which he's been groomed, or sacrifice happiness for duty and the greater good of the social order? The Age of Innocence won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making Wharton the first woman to win the prize. This established Wharton as the American “First Lady of Letters”. She was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928 and 1930. Highlights of this edition are: • 17 illustrations and photos. • A free web link to the full-length audio recording of the book – to either listen to online, or download. • It is formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your kindle reader. • An active (easy to use) Table of Contents listing every chapter accessible from the kindle “go to” feature. • Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with kindle’s Text-to-Speech features. • Plus, about the Author section. • 514 pages (in the kindle format) for a very low price. This book is unabridged and appears as it was first intended. First published in 1920. Read more