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Edith Wharton’s masterpiece brings to life the grandeur and hypocrisy of a gilded age. Set among the very rich in 1870s New York, it tells the story of Newland Archer, a young lawyer engaged to marry virginal socialite May Welland, when he meets her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska, a woman unbound by convention and surrounded by scandal. As all three are drawn into a love triangle filled with sensuality, subtlety, and betrayal, Archer faces a harrowing choice between happiness and the social code that has ruled his life. The resulting tale of thwarted love is filled with irony and surprise, struggle and acceptance. Recipient of the first Pulitzer Prize for fiction ever awarded to a woman, this great novel paints a timeless portrait of “society” still unmatched in American literature—an arbitrary, capricious social elite that professes inviolable standards but readily abandons them for greed and desire.

伊迪丝·华顿（Edith Wharton, 1862-1937）是纽约一个名门望族琼斯家的女儿。和她的朋友亨利·詹姆斯一样，她在家中接受了良好的教育，后来多次出国旅行。1885年她和一个比她大十三岁的有钱的波士顿人爱德华·华顿结了婚。此人性格虽好，但他们却很少共同之处，几年以后，爱德华患了精神病，最终导致了他们的离婚，从此以后，伊迪丝长住巴黎，直到1937年去世。

伊迪丝·华顿起初是为了排遣上流社会家庭生活的苦闷而开始写作的。她从1880年开始发表小说，1889年第一部短篇小说集问世，获得了意外的成功。1905年长篇小说《快乐之家》出版，使她成了20世纪前二十年最受欢迎的美国作家。1920年出版的《纯真年代》为她获得了普利策奖。她一共写了十九部中长篇小说，出版过十一本短篇小说集，还有大量的非小说作品。