The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

It’s always slightly odd reading a book when you are very familiar with the film adaptation (Scorsese’s superb effort), but the quality of the writing on offer here easily transcended my mental obstacles to fully enjoying the novel. The convincing story of love thwarted by social convention is hardly an original theme, but the evocation of 1870s society (the book was written 50 years later) is dazzling and the emotional content resonates strongly.