The Age of Innocence is the haunting story of the struggle between love and duty in Gilded Age New York told through the eyes of Newland Archer and his betrothed, May Welland. A young lawyer on the rise, Newland Archer needs only a society wife to solidify his position, but finds himself torn after he meets and falls deeply in love with May's disgraced cousin, the Countess Olenska. Edith Wharton's twelfth novel, following classics like The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence was the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize.