Where to start with Edith Wharton

American novelist, 1862–1937. Won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1921.

Best Edith Wharton book to start with: The Age of Innocence (1920), on 4 of the 15 lists it could have made.

The Age of Innocence, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, is the Wharton to read first. It is short and set in the high society of New York in the 1870s, and it follows a lawyer who is engaged to a suitable girl and falls for her unconventional cousin. The manners are strict and the plot is easy to follow.

The House of Mirth came first, in 1905. A young woman with good manners and not enough money depends on rich friends to keep her place, and the book follows what happens when they begin to withdraw. It is the sadder of the two, so read it second. Both novels look at the same narrow world from different positions, so they pair well.