Showing results for "The Fall of Innocence" in Literature & Fiction

Countess Ellen Olenska, separated from her European husband, returns to old New York society. She bears with her an independence and an awareness of life which stirs the educated sensitivity of the charming Newland Archer, engaged to be married to her cousin, May Welland. Though he accepts the society's standards and rules he is acutely aware of their limitations. He knows May will assure him a conventional future but Ellen, scandalously separated from her husband, forces Archer to question his values and beliefs.

The Age of Innocence is a powerful depiction of love and desire in New York's glamorous Gilded Age. When Newland Archer, happily engaged to May Welland, meets his fiancée's cousin Ellen, his entire future is cast into doubt: strong-willed, witty, and entirely unpretentious, Ellen is unlike any woman he has ever met. He is torn between his infatuation for her and his duty to marry May. In subtle and elegant language, Wharton delivers a critical look at the social mores of the time.

Set in the 1870s, Edith Wharton examines the American elite culture on the East Coast. Newland Archer is a lawyer and heir to one of New York City's most prominent families. He is arraigned to be married to May Welland. Newland is pleased with the prospect, until he meets Countess Ellen Olenska, May's older cousin. Suddenly, Newland begins to doubt his arranged marriage and society's shallow rules as his attraction to Ellen increases.

A full-cast dramatisation of Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a passionate love affair which breaks all the rules of the restrictive high society of 1870s New York. In the exclusive world of upper-class New York, in which attendance at balls and dinner passes for occupation...

Newland Archer is a young lawyer, a member of New York's high society, and engaged to be married to May Welland. Countess Ellen Olenska is May's cousin, and wants a divorce from the Polish nobleman she married. Intelligent and beautiful, she comes back to New York where she tries to fit into the high society life she had before her marriage. Her family and former friends, however, are shocked by the idea of divorce within their social circle, and she finds herself snubbed by her own class.

A masterful portrait of desire and betrayal that takes place during the sumptuous Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence questions the morals and assumptions of elite 1870s New York society when "scandal was more dreaded than disease." Newland Archer, gentleman lawyer and heir to one of New York City's best families, is happily anticipating a highly desirable marriage to the beautiful but conventional May Welland—until May's exotic European cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York society.

Newland Archer is about to announce his engagement to the docile May Welland when he meets her cousin, the mysterious, nonconformist Countess Ellen Olenska. Edith Wharton's elegant portrait of desire and betrayal in Old New York earned her the first Pulitzer Prize for literature ever awarded to a woman.

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, "being things" is better than "doing things" and reputation and outward appearances come at the exclusion of everything else. In this Gilded Age, when America’s expansion and increased industrialism produce a group of newly wealthy robber barons and financiers.

Edith Wharton became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with this 1920 novel about Old New York society. Newland Archer is wealthy, well-bred, and engaged to the beautiful May Welland. But he finds himself drawn to May's cousin Ellen Olenska, who has been living in Europe and who has returned following a scandalous separation from her husband.

Chloe's brother Zander was given a second chance at life. When the Warrior Angel healed him he developed special abilities intended to help him rid the world of corruption. But now, those powers are causing him to question the difference between innocence and true evil.