Custom of the Country

Paperback, 389 pages

English language

Published 2000 by Oxf.U.P..

ISBN:
978-0-19-284061-5
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4 stars (1 review)

Edith Wharton's satirical anatomy of American society in the first decade of the 20th century, follows the career of Undine Spragg, recently arrived in New York and determined to conquer high society. Her principal assets are her striking beauty, her tenacity, and her father's money.

47 editions

Lifestyles of the wannabe rich and famous

4 stars

This was an interesting book from the standpoint of social conventions in upper crust society at the turn of the 20th century. Undine Spragg is very much the antihero leaving a trail of destruction in her wake as she crawls up the social ladder marriage by marriage. One wonders whether Meghan Markle should have read it before becoming entangled in the British royal family given the subject matter.

It's a bit hard to relate to so much of the novel partly because it's over a hundred years old, but also because I am not of the New York elite and therefore unfamiliar, even baffled by some of the social aspects of the story. Having to have your mother respond first before you can seems bizarre and so when Undine breaks some of these rules, it is difficult to appreciate the effect it should have on the reader.

One of the …