ESSAYS / ROMANCE / FICTION AND LITERATURE
The Age of Innocence centers on an upper-class couple’s impending marriage, and the introduction of a woman plagued by scandal whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assumptions and morals of 1870s’ New York society, it never devolves into an outright condemnation of the institution. In fact, Wharton considered this novel an “apology” for her earlier, more brutal and critical novel, The House of Mirth. Not to be overlooked is Wharton’s attention to detailing the charms and customs of the upper caste. The novel is lauded for its accurate portrayal of how the 19th-century East Coast American upper class lived, and this, combined with the social tragedy, earned Wharton a Pulitzer Prize — the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman. Edith Wharton was 58 years old at publication; she lived in that world, and saw it change dramatically by the end of World War I. The title is an ironic comment on the polished outward manners of New York society, when compared to its inward machinations. (Summary by Wikipedia)
Free English Story eBook: The Age of Innocence
Author: Edith Wharton
Book Excerpt / CHAPTER I
On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances “above the Forties,” of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendor with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy. Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the “new people” whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to; and the sentimental clung to it for its historic associations, and the musical for its excellent acoustics, always so problematic a quality in halls built for the hearing of music.
It was Madame Nilsson’s first appearance that winter, and what the daily press had already learned to describe as “an exceptionally brilliant audience” had gathered to hear her, transported through the slippery, snowy streets in private
broughams, in the spacious family landau, or in the humbler but more convenient “Brown coupe.” To come to the Opera in a Brown coupe was almost as honorable a way of arriving as in one’s own carriage; and departure by the
same means had the immense advantage of enabling one (with a playful allusion to democratic principles) to scramble into the first Brown conveyance in the line, instead of waiting till the cold-and-gin congested nose of one’s own coachman gleamed under the portico of the Academy. It was one of the great livery stableman’s most masterly intuitions to have discovered that Americans want to get away from amusement even more quickly than they want to get to it.
PUBLISHED: 1920 / 282 Pages
Read Online The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
The Following are Audios in Chapters, Click on link to play and Listen
- Book I, Chapter 01
- Book I, Chapter 02
- Book I, Chapter 03
- Book I, Chapter 04
- Book I, Chapter 05
- Book I, Chapter 06
- Book I, Chapter 07
- Book I, Chapter 08
- Book I, Chapter 09
- Book I, Chapter 10
- Book I, Chapter 11
- Book I, Chapter 12
- Book I, Chapter 13
- Book I, Chapter 14
- Book I, Chapter 15
- Book I, Chapter 16
- Book I, Chapter 17
- Book I, Chapter 18
- Book II, Chapter 19
- Book II, Chapter 20
- Book II, Chapter 21
- Book II, Chapter 22
- Book II, Chapter 23
- Book II, Chapter 24
- Book II, Chapter 25
- Book II, Chapter 26
- Book II, Chapter 27
- Book II, Chapter 28
- Book II, Chapter 29
- Book II, Chapter 30
- Book II, Chapter 31
- Book II, Chapter 32
- Book II, Chapter 33
- Book II, Chapter 34