
The Age of Innocence - October 2026 Big Ideas Book Club
About the event
THIS IS AN IN PERSON MEETING
The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Age of Innocence, is both a poignant story of frustrated love and an extraordinarily vivid, delightfully satirical record of a vanished world. It’s this vanished world that inspired the lavish costume drama The Gilded Age, written by Julian Fellowes, the creator of Downton Abbey. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover.
As the scion of one of New York’s leading families, Newland Archer has been born into a life of sumptuous privilege and strict duty. But the arrival of the Countess Olenska, a free spirit who breathes clouds of European sophistication, makes him question the path on which his upbringing has set him. As his fascination with her grows, he discovers just how hard it is to escape the bonds of the society that has shaped him.



