Wharton's novel The Custom of the Country (1913) can be considered a companion piece to The House of Mirth. The novel chronicles the rise of Undine Spragg, a ruthless Midwesterner, up New York's social ladder. Unlike Lily Bart, Undine cares nothing about the people she harms as she attempts to achieve wealth and social standing.
Wharton's autobiography A Backward Glance was published in 1934, three years before the author's death.
According to scholar Linda Wagner-Martin, Wharton took as a literary model the titular heroine of Henry James's novella Daisy Miller (1878). Daisy, an American ingenue traveling in Europe with her mother, becomes compromised by her friendship with an Italian man. Her behavior alienates the American man who is courting her.....
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