Skip to Main Content (Press Enter) Toggle side nav

The Custom of the Country

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Jia Tolentino

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Jia Tolentino

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Lorna Sage

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Lorna Sage

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Jia Tolentino

By Edith Wharton
Introduction by Jia Tolentino

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton

By Edith Wharton

Best Seller

Part of Vintage Classics

Part of Modern Library Torchbearers

Part of Everyman's Library Classics Series

Part of Modern Library Torchbearers

Part of Vintage Classics

Paperback $12.00

Jun 05, 2012 | ISBN 9780307949547

Paperback $15.00

Oct 09, 2001 | ISBN 9780375758072

Mass Market Paperback $6.95

Apr 01, 1991 | ISBN 9780553213935 *This format is not eligible to earn points towards the Reader Rewards program

Hardcover $20.00

Oct 04, 1994 | ISBN 9780679423010

Ebook $11.99

Sep 10, 2019 | ISBN 9780593133101

Ebook $9.99

Jun 05, 2012 | ISBN 9780307950581

Ebook $1.99

Dec 26, 2007 | ISBN 9780553904444

All Formats
+
    The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
    Paperback $12.00
    Jun 05, 2012 | ISBN 9780307949547

    Also available from:

    See All Formats (6) +

    Paperback (3)
    –

    • Paperback $12.00

      Jun 05, 2012 | ISBN 9780307949547

      Also available from:

    • Paperback $15.00

      Oct 09, 2001 | ISBN 9780375758072

      Also available from:

    • Mass Market Paperback $6.95

      Apr 01, 1991 | ISBN 9780553213935

      Also available from:

      *This format is not eligible to earn points towards the Reader Rewards program

    Hardcover
    +

    • Hardcover $20.00

      Oct 04, 1994 | ISBN 9780679423010

      Also available from:

    Ebook (3)
    +

    • Ebook

      Sep 10, 2019 | ISBN 9780593133101

      Available from:

    • Ebook

      Jun 05, 2012 | ISBN 9780307950581

      Available from:

    • Ebook

      Dec 26, 2007 | ISBN 9780553904444

      Available from:

    Buy the Ebook:

    About The Custom of the Country

    Edith Wharton’s lacerating satire on marriage and materialism in turn-of-the-century New York features her most selfish, ruthless, and irresistibly outrageous female character.
     
    Undine Spragg is an exquisitely beautiful but ferociously acquisitive young woman from the Midwest who comes to New York to seek her fortune. She achieves her social ambitions—but only at the highest cost to her family, her admirers, and her several husbands. Wharton lavished on Undine an imaginative energy that suggests she was as fascinated as she was appalled by the alluring monster she had created. It is the complexity of her attitude that makes The Custom of the Country—with its rich social and emotional detail and its headlong narrative power—one of the most fully realized and resonant of her works.

    About The Custom of the Country

    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 an antiheroine as compelling and driven as Scarlett O’Hara, 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

    About The Custom of the Country

    First published in 1913, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country is a scathing novel of ambition featuring one of the most ruthless heroines in literature. Undine Spragg is as unscrupulous as she is magnetically beautiful. Her rise to the top of New York’s high society from the nouveau riche provides a provocative commentary on the upwardly mobile and the aspirations that eventually cause their ruin. One of Wharton’s most acclaimed works, The Custom of the Country is a stunning indictment of materialism and misplaced values that is as powerful today for its astute observations about greed and power as when it was written nearly a century ago.

    About The Custom of the Country

    Highly acclaimed at its publication in 1913, The Custom of the Country is a cutting commentary on America’s nouveaux riches, their upward-yearning aspirations and their eventual downfalls. Through her heroine, the beautiful and ruthless Undine Spragg, a spoiled heiress who looks to her next materialistic triumph as her latest conquest throws himself at her feet, Edith Wharton presents a startling, satiric vision of social behavior in all its greedy glory. As Undine moves from America’s heartland to Manhattan, and then to Paris, Wharton’s critical eye leaves no social class unscathed.

    About The Custom of the Country

    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 an antiheroine as compelling and driven as Scarlett O’Hara, 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

    About The Custom of the Country

    Edith Wharton’s lacerating satire on marriage and materialism in turn-of-the-century New York features her most selfish, ruthless, and irresistibly outrageous female character.
     
    Undine Spragg is an exquisitely beautiful but ferociously acquisitive young woman from the Midwest who comes to New York to seek her fortune. She achieves her social ambitions—but only at the highest cost to her family, her admirers, and her several husbands. Wharton lavished on Undine an imaginative energy that suggests she was as fascinated as she was appalled by the alluring monster she had created. It is the complexity of her attitude that makes The Custom of the Country—with its rich social and emotional detail and its headlong narrative power—one of the most fully realized and resonant of her works.

    About The Custom of the Country

    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 an antiheroine as compelling and driven as Scarlett O’Hara, 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

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Read An Excerpt

    Reading Guide

    Also in Everyman’s Library Classics Series

    Selected Stories
    Notes from a Dead House

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    Also by Edith Wharton

    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    Ethan Frome
    The Age of Innocence
    The House of Mirth
    See all books by Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    About 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… More about Edith Wharton

    Product Details

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Paperback | $12.00
    Published by Vintage
    Jun 05, 2012 | 432 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780307949547

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Paperback | $15.00
    Published by Modern Library
    Oct 09, 2001 | 416 Pages | 5-3/16 x 8 | ISBN 9780375758072

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Mass Market Paperback | $6.95
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Apr 01, 1991 | 480 Pages | 4-3/16 x 6-7/8 | ISBN 9780553213935

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Hardcover | $20.00
    Published by Everyman’s Library
    Oct 04, 1994 | 456 Pages | ISBN 9780679423010

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $11.99
    Published by Modern Library
    Sep 10, 2019 | 416 Pages | ISBN 9780593133101

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $9.99
    Published by Vintage
    Jun 05, 2012 | 432 Pages | ISBN 9780307950581

    Category: Fiction Classics | Literary Fiction | Historical Fiction

    Ebook | $1.99
    Published by Bantam Classics
    Dec 26, 2007 | 480 Pages | ISBN 9780553904444

    Inspired by Your Browsing History

    Buy other books like The Custom of the Country

    ‹ ›
    The Noise of Time
    The Noise of Time
    Julian Barnes
    A Garden of Earthly Delights
    A Garden of Earthly Delights
    Joyce Carol Oates
    The Painted Veil
    The Painted Veil
    W. Somerset Maugham
    Light in August
    Light in August
    William Faulkner
    Buddenbrooks
    Buddenbrooks
    Thomas Mann
    The Buccaneers
    The Buccaneers
    Marion Mainwaring and Edith Wharton
    A Death in the Family
    A Death in the Family
    James Agee
    Sophie's Choice
    Sophie’s Choice
    William Styron
    A Fable
    A Fable
    William Faulkner
    Mister Pip
    Mister Pip
    Lloyd Jones
    Waterland
    Waterland
    Graham Swift
    The House of Mirth
    The House of Mirth
    Edith Wharton
    The Inner Circle
    The Inner Circle
    T.C. Boyle
    Coming Through Slaughter
    Coming Through Slaughter
    Michael Ondaatje
    The Unvanquished
    The Unvanquished
    William Faulkner
    The Red Pony
    The Red Pony
    John Steinbeck
    O Pioneers!
    O Pioneers!
    Willa Cather
    Saturday
    Saturday
    Ian McEwan
    The World According to Garp
    The World According to Garp
    John Irving
    The Awakening
    The Awakening
    Kate Chopin
    Expensive People
    Expensive People
    Joyce Carol Oates
    Mason & Dixon
    Mason & Dixon
    Thomas Pynchon
    A Month in the Country
    A Month in the Country
    J.L. Carr
    Absalom, Absalom!
    Absalom, Absalom!
    William Faulkner
    The Reivers
    The Reivers
    William Faulkner
    The Spectator Bird
    The Spectator Bird
    Wallace Stegner
    Martin Dressler
    Martin Dressler
    Steven Millhauser
    Billy Bathgate
    Billy Bathgate
    E.L. Doctorow
    World's End
    World’s End
    T.C. Boyle
    The Heavenly Table
    The Heavenly Table
    Donald Ray Pollock
    Not Without Laughter
    Not Without Laughter
    Langston Hughes
    The Death of the Heart
    The Death of the Heart
    Elizabeth Bowen

    Praise

    "Edith Wharton’s finest achievement."
    –Elizabeth Hardwick

    Looking for More Great Reads?
    21 Books You’ve Been Meaning to Read
    Get the latest updates from Edith Wharton
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.
    By clicking SIGN UP, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
    Dismiss
    Thanks!
    Something awesome is on its way.
    Back to Top

    Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network

    Raise kids who love to read

    Brightly

    Raise kids who love to read
    Today's Top Books

    Today's Top Books

    Want to know what people are actually reading right now?
    An online magazine for today’s home cook

    TASTE

    An online magazine for today’s home cook