HarperCollins is proud to introduce its new series of beloved, essential classics. "I want – I want somehow to escape with you into a world where such words – such categories – do not exist. Where we are simply two people who love each other, who are everything to each other for a lifetime; and nothing else in the world will matter."

Newland Archer, a successful and charming young lawyer, adheres to the rules and standards of the high society of New York in which he lives. Happily engaged to the pretty and conventional May Welland, his engagement secures him a place in this rigid world of the elite.

However, the arrival of May's cousin, the exotic and beautiful European Countess Olenska, disrupts Newland's life. As a divorcee, Olenska is shunned by her surroundings, yet Newland feels passionately drawn to her wit, her determination, and her willingness to defy conventions. With the Countess, Newland is freed from the constraints that surround him and begins to truly "feel" for the first time.

Wharton's subtle revelation of the manners and etiquette of New York society in the 1870s is both humorous and nuanced, satirical and cynical in style, painting a striking picture of a man torn between his passion and his duty.