Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 'The Age of Innocence,' masterfully plunges readers into the rigid and hypocritical world of New York's upper class during the 1870s Gilded Age. It follows Newland Archer, a young, ambitious lawyer engaged to the beautiful but conventional May Welland, whose orderly life is upended by the arrival of the unconventional Countess Ellen Olenska. As Archer struggles between his duty to May and his burgeoning passion for Ellen, Wharton critiques the stifling social mores and unspoken rules that dictated aristocratic society, exposing the sacrifices made for the sake of reputation and conformity. This timeless classic is a poignant exploration of love, disillusionment, and the true cost of societal expectations.