Exhibitions | June 2020 | Rebecca Rego Barry

Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence Turns 100

Courtesy of Scribner/Simon & Schuster

A new edition of Wharton's classic, published in its centennial year.

Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, a novel about suffocating social mores set in New York City during the Gilded Age, observes its centennial this year. The author’s twelfth novel, it won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, making Wharton was the first woman to attain that honor.

To mark the occasion, The Mount, Wharton’s house museum in western Massachusetts, is encouraging everyone to “re(read) or (re)watch” The Age of Innocence this summer. Just about any of the many editions out there will do, but there is a brand new anniversary edition out this year (in paperback and ebook) with an introduction by author Colm Tóibín. The 1993 Martin Scorsese film starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Winona Ryder is absolutely worth a second viewing.

Credit: The Mount Archives

The initial installment of The Age of Innocence debuted in the July 1920 issue of the Pictorial Review, opposite an ad for Ivory Soap!

The curators at The Mount have also created an online exhibition, Writing The Age of Innocence, which introduces readers to Wharton’s process from start to finish— apparently it took her less than seven months to write this masterpiece! You can page through her penciled notes and photographs of the people and places that inspired the novel.

Several online events to celebrate the centennial are on the schedule, too, including:

Researching The Age of Innocence Wednesday, July 1, 4:00 PM

Anne Schuyler, Director of Interpretation and Nicholas Hudson, Curatorial Assistant, share insights from their research in preparation for of the centennial celebration of Wharton’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel.

100 Years of Innocence: A Conversation with Arielle Zibrak and Sarah Blackwood Thursday, July 9 at 4:00 PM

Authors and Wharton scholars Arielle Zibrak and Sarah Blackwood will discuss changing reactions to The Age of Innocence over the last 100 years. This is an online event.

Telling Two Stories with Elif Batuman and Jennifer Haytock Thursday, August 6, 4:00 PM

Author Elif Batuman and Wharton scholar Jennifer Haytock will share how their own multiple readings of The Age of Innocence has informed their understanding of social norms, class and privilege, from Wharton’s old New York through today.