A book cover design for The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, reinterpreting the Scribner 100th anniversary edition through a softer visual approach. While the original design featured a bold graphic lace pattern layered over a portrait by John Singer Sargent, my version uses a more delicate textile-inspired motif composed of small Xs that resemble an analog lace pattern.

A driving theme throughout the novel is the tension between the interior and exterior lives of its characters within New York’s Gilded Age high society. Wharton’s precise descriptions of fashion, ornament, and domestic interiors also play an important role in shaping the atmosphere of the book. The textile motif is used as a way to evoke ideas of masking and concealment—a screen between the characters’ true desires and the social roles they feel obligated to perform.

The painting is The Letter by Eugène Accard, which depicts a woman turned away from the viewer, absorbed in a piece of correspondence. I felt the painting perfectly captured the emotional restraint and longing at the heart of the novel. I was especially drawn to the red ribbon on the back of the subject’s dress, which echoes the ribbon motif used in the novel that represents lust—the palpable presence of it and the protagonist Newland Archer’s constant battle to deny it.