Edith Wharton was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.Written in 1913 by major American writer Edith Wharton, "The Custom o¬¬f the Country" follows a young woman's ruthless ambition to excel within a judgmental Manhattan society. It is Wharton's ninth novel and with its subject matter revolving around divorce, reflects Wharton's own life around this time, when the author divorced and moved to France permanently.Its themes include the peril of materialism, selfishness and narcissism, and the cruelty brought on by ruthless ambition. Often told from the vantage point of the protagonist, the novel never strays from third-person perspective.Undine Spragg, the heroine, is an ambitious young woman from the American Midwest. Raised in the fictional town of Apex, she's the product of a family who has risen to a certain social status through sketchy financial dealings.Undine strives to rise in New York City society through a succession of marriages and divorces that ultimately lead to her undoing.First published in 1913, Edith Wharton's "The Custom of the Country" tells the story of Undine Spragg, a girl from a Midwestern town with unquenchable social aspirations. Though Undine is narcissistic, pampered, and incredibly selfish, she is also a fascinating, vibrant, and beguiling heroine whose marital initiation into New York high society from its trade-wealthy fringes is only the beginning of her relentless plans. Undine is never satisfied with what she has and constantly hungers for more wealth, more prestige, and more luxury. Her search for these lofty goals takes her from New York to Europe and the apartments of the nouveau riche to ancient French estates. While Undine's cleverness and single-mindedness ultimately gets her what she wants most, it comes at great cost to everyone else, such as her family, child, and many husbands. Through Undine's restlessness and ambition, Wharton weaves an elaborate plot that renders a detailed depiction of upper-class social behavior in the early twentieth century. By utilizing a character with inexorable greed in a novel of manners, Wharton explores the social customs of an emerging modern age and the changing role of women in society.