The Custom of the Country

The Custom of the Country is a novel written by Edith Wharton and first published in 1913.

The novel reflects how the pursuit of wealth and climbing the social ladder is a constant human ambition that never grows old. Edith Warton explores the theme in this novel by introducing an anti-heroine named Undine Sprag who is vile, but at the same time, irresistible.

Undine Spragg is glamorous, selfish and manipulative. She uses her beauty and cunning to try to get an advantageous marriage and tries to accomplish her goals in a world where it is very easy and quick to go from triumph to disappointment.

The book describes the attractions and dangers of materialism in New York at a time when fashionable people lived in hotels. The plot shows the follies of the modern upper class and their social behavior.

It is considered by many critics as Edith Wharton's masterpiece.

Edith Wharton's satirical anatomy of American society in the first decade of the twentieth century appeared in 1913; it horrified and fascinated its early critics and established her as a major novelist.