16 h 5 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 16 h 5 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if every door that opens only makes you hungry for the next?
Undine Spragg arrives in New York with her parents and a clear ambition: to reach the top of society. Beautiful, bold and almost without conscience, she wants the best clothes, the right invitations and constant admiration. Her father, Abner Spragg, has money. But money alone cannot teach her the rules.
In The Custom of the Country, Edith Wharton brings Undine face to face with Ralph Marvell, a gentle young man from an old New York family. He offers a world of quiet manners; she longs for something grander. Marriage becomes a ladder, and Wharton's dry humour asks who pays for each step upward.
What you’ll discover
- An appetite without limits Follow a woman you may dislike yet find impossible to stop watching.
- Two Americas collide Watch new fortunes meet old families whose quiet rules resist the power of money.
- Marriage as a ladder Explore a world where choosing a husband also means choosing a social rank.
- Rooms full of rules Move from New York hotels toward Italy and Paris, where ambition encounters different barriers.
- Humour with a hard edge Enjoy Wharton's controlled irony as admiration, spending and status expose the people chasing them.
Who will love it
For readers who love social comedy, sharp character studies and stories about money and class. It also suits anyone who liked The Age of Innocence and wants Wharton in a harsher mood.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A Midwestern family lands in New York
- Undine learns what society really rewards
- Ralph Marvell offers a different New York
- Marriage brings Undine her first disappointment
- The fast set tempts Undine away
- Paris opens a grander and colder world
- Marriage is a market and women are goods
- Undine is both a monster and a mirror
- Irony, observers and a pattern that repeats
Who’s who
- Undine SpraggA beautiful, ambitious young woman from Apex who wants to rise to the top of fashionable society and treats marriage as a way to get there.
- Ralph MarvellA gentle, bookish young man from an old New York family who falls in love with Undine and hopes to shape her.
- Abner SpraggUndine's father, a Midwestern businessman who moves his family to New York and struggles to pay for his daughter's desires.
- Leota SpraggUndine's mother, loyal and anxious, who follows her daughter's wishes without fully understanding the world she is entering.
- Peter Van DegenA rich, pleasure-loving New Yorker in the fast set who pays attention to Undine and can offer her what she craves.
- Charles BowenAn older friend of the Marvells, a sharp and kindly observer who understands Undine and comments on her ways.
- Elmer MoffattA shrewd, rough speculator from Undine's Apex past, as hungry for success as she is.
- Raymond de ChellesA French aristocrat of quiet pride from an old family, whose world Undine longs to enter.
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- Audiobook
- 16 h 5 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 14 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Der Brauch des Landes
by Edith Wharton · 1913
Undine Spragg treats marriage as a ladder into New York society, and others pay the price of her ambition.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Custom of the Country is a novel by Edith Wharton, published in 1913. It follows Undine Spragg, a young woman from the invented Midwestern city of Apex, who arrives in New York with her parents and decides to climb to the top of society.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Midwestern family lands in New York
The novel opens in a New York hotel called the Stentorian, where the Spragg family has taken a suite. Abner Spragg, the father, has made money in business back in Apex and has moved east so that his daughter can have the life she wants. His wife, Leota, follows along with a mixture of pride and bewilderment. Their rooms are large and expensive, but the family knows almost nobody.
Undine is the center of the household. She is a young woman with striking looks, and she has a talent for getting what she asks for. Her parents give in to her because they are proud of her and a little afraid of her. Her name itself carries a small joke. It comes from a hair-waving device her father once sold, and it shows how far the family is from the old world it hopes to enter.
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What is The Custom of the Country about?
It follows Undine Spragg, a young woman from the Midwest who moves to New York and uses marriage to climb the social ladder. The novel shows the cost of her ambition to the people around her and to the society that shaped her.
Who is Undine Spragg?
Undine is the heroine of the novel, a beautiful and determined girl from the invented city of Apex. She wants admiration, wealth and rank, and she is willing to use other people to get them.
What does the title The Custom of the Country mean?
It refers to the American habit Wharton describes, in which men spend their days making money while women are left with leisure and display. The custom shapes marriage, ambition and the way people are valued.
The author
Edith Wharton
1862–1937 · American novelist
Edith Wharton (1862–1937) was an American writer and designer born in New York City. She later lived in France, where she died. Her books include The House of Mirth (1905), Ethan Frome (1911), and The Age of Innocence (1920). She co-wrote The Decoration of Houses with Ogden Codman Jr. in 1897.
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