Custom Of The Country

Custom Of The Country by Wharton, Edith. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9781857151985.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY is probably Edith Whartons most savage satire on the manners of late nineteenth-century America. It is the story of the exquisitely beautiful but brutally ambitious Undine Spragg who marries her way into the high aristocracy of Europe, abandoning several husbands along the way. This novel, which has scences of comedy and even farce, is a commentary on both certain aspects of feminisim and certain aspects of capitalism in Edith Whartons time. The novel makes a fitting companion to THE AGE OF INNOCENCE and THE HOUSE OF MIRTH and shows Wharton to be one of the greatest American novelists.