> Skip to content
[]
  • Published: 30 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9781440649387
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

The Custom of the Country

(Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)




The classic satire of New York society and the American Dream through the misadventures of an insatiable young striver—with an introduction by Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror

Ambitious and wholeheartedly materialistic, Undine Spragg is a beautiful heiress who sees men as a means to an end. New York millionaires and French aristocrats fall at her feet, but each conquest is merely a stepping-stone in Undine’s quest for power and position—and in her elusive search for happiness.

A biting satire from one of America’s greatest writers, The Custom of the Country features a compelling and ruthless heroine, a sharp-eyed critique of the marriage market and its objectification of women, and a knowing send-up of Gilded Age snobbery.

The Modern Library Torchbearers series features women who wrote on their own terms, with boldness, creativity, and a spirit of resistance:

AMERICAN INDIAN STORIES • THE AWAKENING • THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY • THE HEADS OF CERBERUS • LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET • LOVE, ANGER, MADNESS • PASSING • THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILIP JETTAN • VILLETTE

  • Published: 30 May 2006
  • ISBN: 9781440649387
  • Imprint: PEN US eBook Adult
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

Other books in the series

The New Penguin Book Of American Short Stories, From Washington Irving To Lydia Davis
The Black Tulip
The Lady of the Camellias
Selected Poetry
Venus in Furs
Man and Superman
Military Dispatches
The Prelude

About the author

Edith Wharton

The upper stratum of New York society into which Edith Wharton was born in 1862 provided her with an abundance of material as a novelist but did not encourage her growth as an artist. Educated by tutors and governesses, she was raised for only one career: marriage. But her marriage, in 1885, to Edward Wharton was an emotional disappointment, if not a disaster. She suffered the first of a series of nervous breakdowns in 1894. In spite of the strain of her marriage, or perhaps because of it, she began to write fiction and published her first story in 1889. Her first published book was a guide to interior decorating, but this was followed by several novels and story collections. They were written while the Whartons lived in Newport and New York, traveled in Europe, and built their grand home, the Mount, in Lenox, Massachusetts. In Europe, she met Henry James, who became her good friend, traveling companion, and the sternest but most careful critic of her fiction. The House of Mirth (1905) was both a resounding critical success and a bestseller, as was Ethan Frome (1911). In 1913 the Whartons were divorced, and Edith took up permanent residence in France.  Her subject, however, remained America, especially the moneyed New York of her youth. Her great satiric novel, The Custom of the Country was published in 1913 and The Age of Innocence won her the Pulitzer Prize in 1921. In her later years, she enjoyed the admiration of a new generation of writers, including Sinclair Lewis and F. Scott Fitzgerald. In all, she wrote some 30 books, including an autobiography, A Backward Glance (1934). She died at her villa near Paris in 1937.

Also by Edith Wharton

See all