The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

In the rigid society of 1870s New York, lawyer Newland Archer becomes engaged to the proper May Welland while secretly drawn to her unconventional cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska. His struggle between passion and duty exposes the suffocating power of social convention. As he sacrifices love for respectability, he becomes a prisoner of the very ideals he once upheld. The novel portrays the quiet tragedy of lives constrained by appearance and expectation.