The Age of Innocence: Illustrated by Edith Wharton was first published in 1920, which won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize. Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer. The story is set in upper-class New York City in the 1870s. In 1920, The Age of Innocence was serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine, and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London. The Age of Innocence centers on an upper-class couple's impending marriage, and the introduction of a woman plagued by scandal whose presence threatens their happiness. Though the novel questions the assumptions and morals of 1870s' New York society, it never devolves into an outright condemnation of the institution. The novel is lauded for its accurate portrayal of how the 19th-century East Coast American upper class lived, and this, combined with the social tragedy, earned Wharton a Pulitzer Prize — the first Pulitzer awarded to a woman.