The Custom of the Country

Wharton, Edith; Wolff, Cynthia Griffin

ISBN 10: 0684825880 / ISBN 13: 9780684825885

Published by Scribner, 1997

About this Item

Fast Free Shipping â Good condition. It may show normal signs of use, such as light writing, highlighting, or library markings, but all pages are intact and the book is fully readable. A solid, complete copy that's ready to enjoy.

Seller Inventory # GWV.0684825880.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Custom of the Country
• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684825880
• ISBN 13: 9780684825885
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

“For my money, no literary antiheroine can best Undine.” —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

Edith Wharton’s compulsively readable 20th century classic about the conquests of Undine Spragg, the glamorous and insatiable social climber—now with a new introduction by Brandon Taylor.

Undine Spragg is beautiful—anyone in New York will admit to as much. But what is the point of beauty if no one can see you? The Spraggs left the Midwest in search of a glamorous life for their daughter. Now, cooped up in a gilded uptown hotel they can barely afford, they begin to fear their move to the big city was for naught. But Undine is determined. And Undine always gets her way.

What follows is a tactical climb to the pinnacle of affluence and early 20th-century high society that will amaze and mortify. Witty and devasting, The Custom of the Country is an astute comedy of manners and a scathing satire of upper-class life that bites to this day. More than a century after its original publication, Edith Wharton’s 1913 masterpiece remains an un-put-downable showcase for one of the most memorable, controversial anti-heroines in American literature.

About the Author

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American novelist—the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for her novel The Age of Innocence in 1921—as well as a short story writer, playwright, designer, reporter, and poet. Her other works include Ethan Frome, The House of Mirth, and Roman Fever and Other Stories. Born into one of New York’s elite families, she drew upon her knowledge of upper-class aristocracy to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age.