The Age of Innocence (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Wharton, Edith

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853262102 ISBN 13: 9781853262104

Verlag: WORDSWORTH ED, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

256pages. in8. Broché. Somewhere in this book, Wharton observes that clever liars always ccme up with good stories to back up their fabrications, but that really clever liars don't bother to explain anything at all. This is the kind of insight that makes The Age of Innocence so indispensable. Wharton's story of the upper classes of Old New York, and Newland Archer's impossible love for the disgraced Countess Olenska, is a perfectly wrought book about an era when upper-class culture in this country was still a mixture of American and European extracts, and when "society" had rules as rigid as any in history.

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Críticas

America's greatest woman novelist Sunday Times I love virtually all of Edith Wharton, but this one's my favourite... I admire her prose style, which is lucid, intelligent, and artful rather than arty; she is eloquent but never fussy, and always clear. She never seems to be writing well to show off. As for The Age of Innocence, it's a poignant story that, typically for Wharton, illustrates the bind women found themselves in when trapped hazily between a demeaning if relaxing servitude and real if frightening independence, and that both sexes find themselves in when trapped between the demands of morality and the demands of the heart. The novel is romantic but not sentimental, and I'm a sucker for unhappy endings -- Lionel Shriver There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska... Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature -- Gore Vidal Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition? -- E. M. Forster Wharton's dazzling skills as a stylist, creator of character, ironical observer and unveiler of passionate, thwarted emotions have earned her a devoted following --Hermione Lee Sunday Times

Reseña del editor

Widely regarded as one of Edith Wharton's greatest achievements, The Age of Innocence is not only subtly satirical, but also a sometimes dark and disturbing comedy of manners in its exploration of the 'eternal triangle' of love. Set against the backdrop of upper-class New York society during the 1870s, the author's combination of powerful prose combined with a thoroughly researched and meticulous evocation of the manners and style of the period, has delighted readers since the novel's first publication in 1920. In 1921 The Age of Innocence achieved a double distinction - it won the Pulitzer Prize and it was the first time this prestigious award had been won by a woman author.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: WORDSWORTH ED
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1853262102
• ISBN 13: 9781853262104
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 256