Other Fiction Wharton, Edith: The Custom of the Country, v.1, 17 Feb 2008.

[Patricia]

A novel of 1913.

The (anti-?) heroine, Undine Spragg, of Apex City, decides to better herself through a series of progressively more advantageous marriages. Who will she end up with? Will she ever understand the true value of things? Is there any end to her ambition?

Elaine Showalter has noted that Undine Spragg’s initials are ‘U.S.’ Might the novel be a comment on the commercialism of American society of the time?

The title of the novel is from a Fletcher and Massinger play of the 1600s about the buying and selling of women’s bodies. (‘Country ’ was often used as an aural play on words for something else entirely.)

I have restored accents, italics and emdashes. and added curly quotes.

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