<P> The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton 's twelfth novel , initially serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine in 1920 , and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London . It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , making Wharton the first woman to win the prize . Though the committee initially agreed to award the prize to Sinclair Lewis , the judges rejected his Main Street on political grounds and `` established Wharton as the American ' First Lady of Letters ' '' , the irony being that the committee had awarded The Age of Innocence the prize on grounds that negated Wharton 's own blatant and subtle ironies , which constitute and make the book so worthy of attention . The story is set in upper - class New York City in the 1870s , during the Gilded Age . Wharton wrote the book in her 50s , after she had established herself as a strong author with publishers clamoring for her work . </P>
<P> The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton 's twelfth novel , initially serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine in 1920 , and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London . It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , making Wharton the first woman to win the prize . Though the committee initially agreed to award the prize to Sinclair Lewis , the judges rejected his Main Street on political grounds and `` established Wharton as the American ' First Lady of Letters ' '' , the irony being that the committee had awarded The Age of Innocence the prize on grounds that negated Wharton 's own blatant and subtle ironies , which constitute and make the book so worthy of attention . The story is set in upper - class New York City in the 1870s , during the Gilded Age . Wharton wrote the book in her 50s , after she had established herself as a strong author with publishers clamoring for her work . </P>
american writer whose novels include the age of innocence
american writer whose novels include the age of innocence
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton