In the following overview of The Age of Innocence, Hynes explores Wharton 's treatment of a changing society.

The Age of Innocence, a reminiscent but satiric account of the time, place, and society in which Edith Wharton grew up, won for the author a 1921 Pulitzer Prize and was a best-seller when it appeared. Wharton had earlier taken up the topic of the society of the old New York, in which her wealthy parents played important roles, in novels such as The House of Mirth and The Custom of the Country. But, written after Wharton had experienced the horror and destruction of World War I, in a time during which old systems of beliefs and customs seemed to be collapsing, The Age of Innocence looks back to a time of apparent stability - a time in which the forms and conventions were understood, if sometimes repressive. The novel...