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| English: American author Booth Tarkington, 3/4 length portrait, standing, facing right; holding cigarette; with right hand in coat pocket. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Booth Tarkington documented middle and upper middle class
life in its ideal during the late Victorian era .He documented the rise of the
white Anglo-Saxon middle class in middle America .
Tarkington also wrote about great social disruption particular group of
Americans this experienced as the turn-of-the-century turned into the jazz age.
His view of American life was rose colored, as he documented the comforts of
the well-established middle-class. Old money struggled to survive in a world
where tycoons were made money overnight. New money from those without good
Virginian or New England pedigrees ,changed
and livened up the stoic Victorian middle-class.
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| Cover via Amazon |
Booth Tarkington was a product of the very society he wrote about. Born into a prosperous
middle-class family he was the son of John S Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth
Tarkington. He came into the world
Newton Booth Tarkington 29 July 1869 in Indianapolis ,
Indiana He had such famous relations as Newton
Booth then governor of California
for which he was named..
His father John S Tarkington was a local attorney and
sometimes judge. Tarkington had a rather pleasant and unremarkable Victorian
upbringing. Booth Tarkington attended Purdue
University for 10 years for two years,
but his father wishing to have it wishing him to have an Ivy League education
sent into Princeton . Tarkington was supposed
to graduate in 1893 but he did not have enough credits , Booth Tarkington did
however receive honorary degrees in 1899 and in 1918 from Princeton .
University was a very important part f Booth Tarkington’s life because here he
got a taste for writing. Tarkington was the editor of the Nassau Literary Magazine
and founder of the Princeton Triangle Club. He was also the voted the most
popular man on campus, however having a successful social life did not
translate into academic degree for him.
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| Julia; frontispiece of a 1922 New York publication of Gentle Julia, by Booth Tarkington (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Booth Tarkington returned home in 1893
having been written having been bitten by the writers bug. He made his living
in the arts as a sketch artist and
novelist. Tarkington’s early work was subject to many rejections but his
persistence in writing but his passion for writing would eventually pay off. His
streak of bad t luck finally broke when in1899 story that he had written called
The Gentleman From Indiana became a bestseller. This was soon followed by
another literary success a historical romance Monsieur Beaucaire , this
book would go on to become a movie starring Rudolph Valentino. Unfortunately
during this time., Tarkington was not as successful in his personal life as he
was his professional life he married Laurel Fletcher in 1902 and they had one
child daughter who died in infancy. The couple was not well match from the beginning
and they divorced in 1911. This was a
very scandalous at the time for a public figure.
He continued to write some of the most popular novels of the
era such as an Two Vanrevels and Mary's Monsieur Beaucaire .
Today Booth Tarkington is best remembered for his trilogy known as Growth which
tracks the Amberson family from right after the Civil War to their social
decline at the turn of the century. The second book in this trilogy the Magnificent
Ambersons was a especially popular after was adapted for the screen by Orson
Welles 1942. This novel continues to show up on lists of popular modern novels.
Booth Tarkington also wanted to document the mischievous
youth of middle America during the late
Victorian era similar to the way Mark Twain did. He wrote three pieces Penrod (1914
)Penrod and Sam (1916) in Penrod Jasber. (1929). Booth Tarkington was known to
be a doting uncle and some of these tales they be based on some of his own
childhood experiences and those of his nephews witchy with whom he kept a
lifetime of correspondence several nephews went on to publish a collection of
the letters he had sent them: Your Amiable Uncle; Letters to His Nephews
by Booth Tarkington (1949).
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| Front cover for Penrod by Booth Tarkington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
He was also involved heavily in the Indianapolis community in Indianapolis having been a trustee for the
John Heron art school in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Tarkington married again
Susanah Kiefer Robinson, and they would have no children..she outlived him bya
couple of decades. The Tarkington’s were sought after couple of the day and
hobnobbed with the upper-class spending many vacations after so need at their
private resort in Kennebunkport in kidney main. He enjoyed an active writing
career up until his death in 1946..
He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1919 for his
novel The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and 1922 forAlice Adams (1921),Alice
Adams which was later made into a movie
starring Katharine Hepburn. He was considered one of the best living writers of
his time. Tarkington died on May 19, 1946. His last novel was published in 1947
Image of Josephine .
Booth Tarkington is
buried in Crown Hill Cemetery Marion County Indiana. It is said that his most
famous novel The Magnificent Ambersons was based upon the families that lived
in Woodruff Pl., Indiana
Booth Tarkington’s works are in direct opposite in some ways
to the poetry of James Whitcomb Riley. James Whitcomb Riley wrote about the
many German, Irish, and other early immigrants who settled Indiana in the mid-19th century and were
only just beginning to find stability in the Hoosier heartland. Only a
generation away from James Whitcomb Riley, with Tarkington Booth Tarkington
focused his work on the Americans who came to Indiana when it was a fit place to have a
civilized life. The children of both these became part of the middle-class of
clerks and farmers that made Indiana
comfortable place to raise children and pursue a livelihood. Both the
Tarkington and James Whitcomb Riley showed that the Hoosier frontier had been transformed into a place of culture.
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