THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY by Wharton, Edith - 1913

1913. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913. Original red cloth. First Edition of Edith Wharton's ninth novel, about the rural Midwestern divorcée Undine Spragg first in New York City and then in Paris -- written just after the author had finalized her divorce and moved permanently to France. ...Still considered an indecent topic for literature at that time, Wharton explores with satire and wisdom divorce as a distinctly American custom... Near the end of the novel, matrons of French society (of the famous Faubourg-Saint-Germain district) look on in horror as a parade of wealthy American women, twice- or thrice-married, attempt to infiltrate aristocratic society... While the French may consider divorce a common American disease, America has its own Faubourg, called Washington Square, where dissolved marriages are viewed with equal scorn. We see this clearly in the novel's opening section. [Penguin] This is a fine, attractive copy, without any of the spine-fading that often afflicts this binding. Garrison A21.I.a.