Author Description

BACKGROUND “The Age of Innocence”, serialized in 1920 by the magazine Pictorial Review, then published in 1924 as a 101,000-word novel by Appleton, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. SETTING 1872 Manhattan mansion ballroom, Countess' Greenwich Village house, Rhinebeck country house 1874 Boston Common, Point Arley restaurant, New Jersey train station, Metropolitan Museum SYNOPSIS Newland can't decide between May and the Countess. CHARACTERS COUNTESS ELLEN OLENSKA May's cousin from Europe is considering divorce from her estranged husband. NEWLAND ARCHER Entrenched in New York high society, a wealthy young lawyer thinks he is in love with his wife's cousin.