The Custom of the Country Categories: Fiction

“Undine Spragg—how can you?” asks the heroine’s mother in the opening to The Custom of the Country. By the end of the book, which follows the career of Undine Spragg, a beautiful, ambitious woman from the Midwest who marries a succession of men and leaves devastation in her wake, the reader may ask the same thing.

Undine is often called an anti-heroine. She is undoubtedly selfish and amoral; few would like to be her friend. At the same time, she is full of life and so determined to advance in spite of pervasive sexism, it can be hard not to root for her.

This satire of America (Undine Spragg’s initials are U.S.) and the treatment of American women provoked Booklist to say in its review that “It is to be devoutly hoped that the title is a libel.” Libelous or not, The Custom of the Country is considered one of Wharton’s greatest works and was one of Wharton’s personal favorites.

Published in October 1913