A 1921 Pulitzer Prize winner about the price of choosing the socially acceptable over the emotionally true. Newland Archer's love for Ellen Olenska is a door he never quite opens, and Wharton's genius is making the reader feel how much is lost in that restraint. The final scene is quietly devastating in a way few American novels have matched.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.