WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE UP FOR LOVE?
Newland Archer, that paragon of Gilded Age New York, seems bound for a life of privilege with an ideal companion, May Welland. Then a childhood friend, the free-thinking, passionate countess Ellen Olenska, returns from Europe. In charged encounters between these three and a large cast of unforgettable characters, Edith Wharton elaborates on a timeless theme, the clash between the need to belong and the urge to leap beyond oneself.
An American by birth and an expatriate by choice, the author probes her own youthful origins in this riveting master work, winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize in Literature. Readers keep coming back for its tender heart, biting wit, and knack for tugging the ever-elusive human soul into startling relief.
With a new postscript: “If Edith’s love affair with Europe were a gun on the wall waiting to go off…”
