Читать книгу Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton - Страница 1

For the rich and the fashionable, New York society in the 1870s was a world full of rules: rules about when to wear a black tie, or the correct time to pay an afternoon visit; rules about who you could invite to your evening parties or sit next to at the opera; rules about who was an acceptable person, and who was not.

Countess Ellen Olenska, who has lived for many years in Europe as the wife of a Polish Count, returns alone to her family in New York. She hopes to leave the pain of her unhappy marriage behind her, but she does not understand the rules of New York society. Newland Archer, however, understands them only too well, and the girl he is engaged to marry, young May Welland, lives her life by the rules, because she cannot imagine any other way of living.

Newland, May, and Ellen are caught in a battle between love, honour, and duty – a battle where strong feelings hide behind polite smiles, where much is left unsaid, and where a single expressive look across a crowded room can carry more meaning than a hundred words.