Undine Spragg, a strikingly attractive and ambitious young woman from the American Midwest, arrives in New York determined to rise in society. She is charming, restless and utterly sure of what she wants, and she treats marriage as a route to ever greater wealth and standing. Her path carries her through old New York families and into European aristocratic circles, leaving others to bear the cost. Wharton's satirical novel looks at ambition, money, divorce and the clash between old and new America, with a memorable and unsettling heroine.