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Years of Grace

First published: 1930
Pages: 439

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About this book

Spanning roughly forty years of Chicago life, this novel follows Jane Ward from a sheltered girlhood in the 1890s through marriage, motherhood, and middle age. As a young woman Jane gives up an early love to do what her family expects, and Margaret Ayer Barnes traces the quiet cost of that choice as manners loosen and a new century reshapes the world around her. Her daughters make freer decisions than she ever could, and Jane watches with a mix of envy and unease. Warm, observant, and unsentimental about the compromises asked of respectable women, the book won the 1931 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available to read and download.

About the author

Margaret Ayer Barnes

Margaret Ayer Barnes (1886-1967) was an American novelist and playwright from Chicago. She turned to writing during a long convalescence after a car accident, and her first novel, Years of Grace, earned the Pulitzer Prize in 1931. She also adapted fiction for the Broadway stage.

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