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Penguin Readers Level 4: The Age of Innocence (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers Level 4: The Age of Innocence (ELT Graded Reader)

Abridged Edition

Summary

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online.

Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content.

The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary.

The Age of Innocence, a Level 4 Reader, is A2+ in the CEFR framework. The text is made up of sentences with up to three clauses, introducing more complex uses of present perfect simple, passives, phrasal verbs and simple relative clauses. It is well supported by illustrations, which appear regularly.

Newland Archer is going to marry the sweet, pretty May Welland. Everyone thinks that they are perfect together. Then, May's beautiful cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, shocks everyone by leaving her husband and moving to New York. When Newland meets Ellen, he starts to question his future with May.

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Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys.

About the author

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton was born in New York City on January 24, 1862. Edith married Teddy Wharton, who was 12 years older. They lived a life of relative ease with homes in New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Edith became a prolific writer and produced over 40 books in 40 years.
Edith divorced Teddy in 1912, having no immediate heirs, and never married again. She was the first woman awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, and a full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her novels became so popular that Ms. Wharton was able to live comfortably on her earnings the rest of her life. Edith continued to write until a stroke took her life in August 1937.
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