The Custom of the Country is a 1913 novel by Edith Wharton. It is centered on Undine Spragg, a social upstart who goes up the social ladder through marriage and divorce and remarriage, many times anew. Wavering between the Romantic and the Realist canons, the novel nevertheless follows in the wake of the literary tradition of the money-novel. It was written by Edith Wharton at a time when she herself was going through a divorce. She had, however, started writing the novel as early as Spring 1908 when she had completed six chapters