Edith Wharton · 1920 · exile

Edith Wharton's twelfth novel, and the first by a woman to win the Pulitzer. Newland Archer is engaged to the entirely suitable May Welland when her cousin arrives from Europe fleeing a Polish count - and Old New York closes around the three of them so quietly that it takes Archer twenty-six years to work out what was done to him and by whom.

1. 1
   New York

   The Academy of Music on a January evening in the 1870s, Faust on the stage, and Countess Olenska in the Mingott box in a dress cut lower than anyone thinks proper - and Newland Archer announces his engagement early to protect her.

2. 2
   Skuytercliff

   The van der Luydens' Hudson estate, built to look like an Italian villa - where Ellen has gone to escape Beaufort and Archer finds an excuse to follow, and the two of them end up alone in the Patroon's house on the grounds.

3. 3
   St Augustine

   The Wellands winter in Florida, and Archer takes a boat south to see May rather than answer Ellen's note - and asks May to marry him sooner, and she offers to release him if there is someone else, which he denies.

4. 4
   London

   The wedding happens in a haze and the honeymoon is a long European tour ending in London - and a dinner with a French tutor whose conversation Archer enjoys and May finds socially inferior, which tells him what the marriage is.

5. 5
   Newport

   The summer, the archery contest at the Beauforts', and Archer sent down to the shore to fetch Ellen from the end of a pier - and he decides not to call out, and stands watching her back until she goes in.

6. 6
   Boston

   He invents a business trip, finds Ellen on a bench on the Common, and they take the boat out to Point Arley for a day - the one whole day they have together in the entire novel, and nothing happens in it.

7. 7
   Washington

   Ellen moves to the capital, out of New York's reach - and the family's money is quietly cut off to bring her back, which is how Old New York deals with a woman who will not be managed.

8. 8
   New York

   The farewell dinner, arranged by May with the whole tribe present and nobody saying anything - and afterwards she tells him she is pregnant, and that she told Ellen a fortnight ago, before she was sure.

9. 9
   Paris

   Twenty-six years later, a widower of fifty-seven sits on a bench below Ellen's window on an avenue near the Invalides, having sent his son up alone - and looks at the shuttered light, and gets up and walks back to the hotel.