1920 · D. Appleton and Company, New York · Pulitzer Prize 1921
Read The Age of Innocence online, set from Wharton’s 1920 first edition and nothing later.
The whole novel is free to read online, chapter by chapter, for anyone in the United States. It sits in our catalogue of public domain books online with notes on Old New York for the things Wharton assumed you knew: who sat in which opera box, why a house on Fifth Avenue mattered, what “the van der Luydens” meant at a dinner table. Book clubs, classes and libraries can ask for a reading-group pack or a large-print set, quoted on request.
- Words
- about 102,000
- Reading time
- 7 h 9 min
- Chapters
- 34, in two books
- Online
- Free to read
- Group packs
- Quoted on request
Book I · Chapter 1
Read chapter one online: the Academy of Music, a January night
Wharton opens at the opera because in 1870s New York the opera was where you were seen. Chapter one runs about 3,300 words, fourteen minutes at 238 words a minute. By the end of it you know who Ellen Olenska is and why every lorgnette in the house has turned toward her.
On a January evening of the early seventies, Christine Nilsson was singing in Faust at the Academy of Music in New York.
Though there was already talk of the erection, in remote metropolitan distances “above the Forties,” of a new Opera House which should compete in costliness and splendour with those of the great European capitals, the world of fashion was still content to reassemble every winter in the shabby red and gold boxes of the sociable old Academy.
Source: D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1920, first printing. Spelling as printed, “splendour” included.
Editor’s note on the Appleton text
We set this from a scanned copy of the 1920 Appleton first printing and proofed every line against it, twice. Wharton revised the book after serial publication in The Pictorial Review, and the serial is not what you want. The book text is.
She wrote British spellings. “Colour”, “honour”, “grey”. We kept every one, because an American novelist of her class spelling that way in 1920 tells you something about the class. Her French stays in italics as she printed it, and a note gives the English where a reader would otherwise stop.
The failure we see most in free copies of this book is small and damaging: the dashes in Archer’s interior monologue get flattened into hyphens, and sentences that break off mid-thought read as typos. We restored all 211 of them.
Old New York notes
The houses, boxes and families Wharton never explains
Eight notes sit in the margin of the reading pages. They are short. They explain a reference once, at the first place it matters, and then get out of the way.
- The Academy of Music
- The opera house on Fourteenth Street and Irving Place. Old families held its boxes; new money could not get one, which is why the Metropolitan was built in 1883.
- “Above the Forties”
- Uptown, then barely built on. A new opera house up there sounded to the old guard like building it in a field.
- Mrs. Manson Mingott’s house
- A cream-coloured stone house far uptown near the Park, built when brownstone was the rule. Wharton makes the colour of the stone a statement of nerve.
- The van der Luydens
- The highest authority in the book, descended from the Dutch colonial settlers. Their approval of Ellen in chapter 7 is a verdict, not a courtesy.
- Skuytercliff
- The van der Luyden country house on the Hudson. Archer and Ellen’s afternoon there in chapter 15 is the first time they are alone.
- Beaufort’s ball-room
- A room used one night a year and shut for the other 364. Owning one was a way of saying you could afford to waste space.
- St. Augustine
- Florida, where the Wellands winter for Mr. Welland’s health. Archer’s trip there in chapter 16 is the point where he tries to hurry the wedding.
- Newport
- The summer colony. Archery on the lawn in chapter 21 shows you May at her best, and Wharton means it.
Content notes
No violence. The weight falls on social cruelty, a marriage held together by pressure, and the casual antisemitic talk of the period in the gossip about Julius Beaufort’s origins. It is printed as written and noted where it occurs.
Correction ledger
Every change made after the book went live
Five entries so far. If you find a sixth, write to us: the text accuracy guarantee says we check every report within 7 days.
- 2023-03-14Restored a paragraph break between Archer and Jackson that merged two speakers. Book I, chapter 1, the talk in the club box
- 2023-03-29
Countess Olenska’sCountess Olenska’s, comma dropped in our transcription, restored to match Appleton p. 58. Book I, chapter 7 - 2023-06-02
colorcolour. An automatic spell check had Americanised one word. We removed the spell check. Book I, chapter 10 - 2024-01-19Italics restored on a French phrase set roman in our first pass. Book II, chapter 25
- 2024-09-08Section break after Archer’s visit to the Blenkers restored; the 1920 text has a line space there. Book II, chapter 22
How a group pack for this book comes together
You tell us the group
How many readers, when you meet, and whether you want digital, printed or large print. One email or the form below.
We read it and plan the split
For this book we usually suggest two meetings with the break after chapter 18. Classes sometimes want three.
You get a written quote
By email, from the correspondent, with the format and what the pack contains. Nothing is charged on this site.
You confirm, we prepare
The pack carries the same proofed text you read here, plus the Old New York notes and discussion questions per meeting.
Questions clubs ask about this book
Is The Age of Innocence really free to read here?
Yes. The 1920 text is in the US public domain and every chapter is free to read online. Only printed or prepared group packs are quoted, by email, after we have read your request.
Is this a good book club pick?
It suits groups that like to argue. Most clubs split it at chapter 18, the end of Book I, across two meetings of about three and a half hours of reading each. The last chapter, set nearly thirty years later, will divide the room.
Who is this edition not for?
Readers who want a scholarly apparatus with variant readings, or an audiobook. Our notes are short and practical, and we do not record audio.
Group packs · quoted on request
Ask for a group-pack quote for The Age of Innocence
Classic books for book clubs work best when everyone has the same page numbers. Tell us the group size and your first meeting date.