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. Sensitive and intelligent, he respects the rigid social codes of his class, and is thankful that his forthcoming marriage to May Welland is to `one of his own kind`. 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 how difficult it is to escape the bounds of the society that has shaped him. Wharton`s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is at once a poignant story of frustrated love and an extraordinarily vivid, delightfully satirical portrait of a vanished world.