num_pages: 312
description: "Edith Wharton's finest achievement." -- Elizabeth HardwickThe Custom of the Country may well be have been the lynchpin that made Edith Wharton's career become the phenomenon that comes so easily to memory across so many decades. Oh, it's of a cloth with all her work -- there's no mistaking that a page of her writing came from her and not someone else -- but on a certain level, this novel is a mean book, and the meanness is warranted.
language: English
title: The Custom of the Country
titlecomplete: The Custom of the Country
characters: Mabel Lipscomb, Laura Fairford, Abner Spragg, Peter Van Degen, Clare Van Degen, Elmer Moffatt, Raymond de Chelles, Undine Spragg, Claud Popple, Ralph Marvell, Leota Spragg, Charles Bowen
genres: 20th Century, American, New York, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Novels, Literature, Classic Literature, Classics, Fiction
ratings_count: 13171
places: New York City, New York
publisher: Alan Rodgers Books