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Newton Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869, Indianapolis – May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.

Biography

Booth Tarkington was the son of John S. Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington, and named after his maternal uncle Newton Booth, then the governor of California. Tarkington was also related to Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth [1848-1850].

Tarkington first attended Shortridge High School, but completed his secondary education at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school on the East Coast.^[1] Tarkington attended Purdue University for two years and was a member of the Morley Club, Purdue's oldest eating club. After, he transferred to Princeton University for another two years, but never officially graduated from either. Booth Tarkington made substantial donations to Purdue, which the university named Tarkington Hall, an all-men's residence hall, in his honor as well as awarded him an honorary degree.^[2]

At Princeton, Tarkington was active as a student-actor in what is now known as "The Triangle Club." According to Triangle's official history ^[3], Tarkington made his first acting appearance in the club's Shapespearean spoof "Katherine" (this was one of the first three productions in the Club's history that was written and produced by Princeton students, a tradition maintained to the present day). Tarkington returned to the Triangle stage as Cassius in their 1893 production "The Honorable Julius Caesar." Tarkington gained prominence that year at Princeton as a co-author of the play, and as the President of Princeton's Dramatic Association (the name of the club before it was officially changed to "The Triangle Club"). In addition to his membership in and role as founder of The Triangle Club, he was also a member of the Ivy Club, the first of Princeton's historic Eating Clubs. At Princeton he also edited the "Nassau Literary Magazine". Tarkington failed to earn his undergraduate degree, the A.B., due to a single missing course in the classics. Nevertheless, his place within campus society was already determined, as he was voted the most popular man in the class for 1893. In his adult life, he was asked to return to Princeton on two occasions for the conferral of two honorary degrees, an A.M. in 1899 and a Litt.D. in 1918. The conferral of more than one honorary degree on an alumnus at Princeton University remains a record for the institution.

Many aspects of Tarkington's Princeton years forecast those of the writer F Scott Fitzgerald who, while an undergraduate nearly 25 years later, also reveled in the literary arts and socialized in the Eating Clubs of Prospect Avenue, but failed to earn his degree as well.

In 1902 Tarkington became a Republican State Representative.

Tarkington was a world traveller who spent much of his later life in Kennebunkport Maine, and left his papers to Colby College. At the same time, he was also an unabashed Midwestern regionalist, and set much of his fiction in his native Indiana. One of the more popular American novelists of his time, his The Two Vanrevels and Mary's Neck appeared on the annual best-seller lists a total of nine times. The Penrod novels depict a typical upper-middle class American boy of 1910 vintage, revealing a fine, bookish sense of American humor.

Tarkington dramatized several of his novels; some were eventually filmed. In 1928, he published a book of reminiscences, The World Does Move. He illustrated the books of others, including a 1933 reprint of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as his own. He took a close interest in fine art and collectibles, and was a trustee of the John Herron Art Museum. In 1902, he served in the Indiana House of Representatives, which supplied the experiences for his book In the Arena: Stories of Political Life. He lived at 4270 North Meridan in Indianapolis from 1923 until his death.^[1]

Much of Tarkington's work consists of satirical and closely observed studies of the American class system and its foibles. He himself came from a patrician family that lost social standing after the Panic of 1873. Today, he is best known for his novel The Magnificent Ambersons, which Orson Welles filmed in 1942. It is included in the Modern Library's list of top-100 novels. The second volume in Tarkington's Growth trilogy, it contrasted the decline of the "old money" Amberson dynasty against the rise of "new money" industrial tycoons in the years between the Civil War and World War I.

Tarkington divorced his first wife in 1911, and remarried the following year. His only child died young.

Bibliography

The Gentleman from Indiana (1899)
Monsieur Beaucaire (1900; later adapted as a play, an operetta and two films—1924 and 1946)
Cherry (1901 - January, February Harper's Magazine) (1903 - Book)
The Two Vanrevels (1902)
In the Arena: Stories of Political Life (1905)
The Beautiful Lady (1905)
The Conquest of Canaan (1905)
The Guest of Quesnay (1907)
Beasley's Christmas Party (1909)
Beauty and the Jacobin, an Interlude of the French Revolution (1912)
Penrod (1914)
The Turmoil (1915) (first volume of the trilogy Growth)
Penrod and Sam (1916)
Seventeen (1916)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1918; won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize; filmed 1941 by Orson Welles, remade for TV in 2002; second volume of the trilogy Growth)
Alice Adams (1921; won the 1922 Pulitzer Prize; filmed 1935)
Gentle Julia (1922)
The Midlander (1924) (1927 re-titled National Avenue; third volume of the trilogy Growth)
Looking Forward, and Others, consisting of "Looking Forward to the Great Adventure", "Nipskillions", "The Hopeful Pessimist", "Stars in the Dust-heap", "The Golden Age", and "Happiness Now" (1926)
The Plutocrat (1927)
Claire Ambler (1928)
Penrod Jashber (1929)
Mirthful Haven (1930)
Mary's Neck (1932)
The Fighting Littles (1941)
Presenting Lily Mars (1933) (filmed 1943)
Kate Fennigate (1943)

References

^ ^a ^b Price, Nelson (2004). Indianapolis Then & Now. San Diego, California: Thunder Bay Press. p. 122. ISBN 1-59223-208-6.
^ http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HOUSTarkington.htm
^ www.princeton.edu/~triangle/content_page/history.html

External links

Template:Persondata

[Indythen-1] Price, Nelson (2004). Indianapolis Then & Now. San Diego, California: Thunder Bay Press. p. 122. ISBN 1-59223-208-6.

[2] ttp://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HOUSTarkington.htm

[3] www.princeton.edu/~triangle/content_page/history.html

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@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 Booth Tarkington was the son of John S. Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington, and named after his maternal uncle [[Newton Booth]], then the governor of California. Tarkington was also related to Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth [1848-1850].
-Tarkington first attended [[Shortridge High School]], but completed his secondary education at [[Phillips Exeter Academy]], a boarding school on the East Coast.<ref name=Indythen/> Tarkington attended [[Purdue University]] for two years, then transferred to [[Princeton University]] for another two years, but never officially graduated from either. Booth Tarkington made substantial donations to Purdue, which the university named Tarkington Hall, an all-men's [[Dormitory|residence hall]], in his honor as well as awarded him an honorary degree.<ref>http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HOUSTarkington.htm</ref>
+Tarkington first attended [[Shortridge High School]], but completed his secondary education at [[Phillips Exeter Academy]], a boarding school on the East Coast.<ref name=Indythen/> Tarkington attended [[Purdue University]] for two years and was a member of the Morley Club, Purdue's oldest eating club. After, he transferred to [[Princeton University]] for another two years, but never officially graduated from either. Booth Tarkington made substantial donations to Purdue, which the university named Tarkington Hall, an all-men's [[Dormitory|residence hall]], in his honor as well as awarded him an honorary degree.<ref>http://www.housing.purdue.edu/HTML/HOUSTarkington.htm</ref>
 At Princeton, Tarkington was active as a student-actor in what is now known as "[[Princeton_Triangle_Club|The Triangle Club]]." According to Triangle's official history <ref> www.princeton.edu/~triangle/content_page/history.html</ref>, Tarkington made his first acting appearance in the club's Shapespearean spoof "Katherine" (this was one of the first three productions in the Club's history that was written and produced by Princeton students, a tradition maintained to the present day). Tarkington returned to the Triangle stage as Cassius in their 1893 production "The Honorable Julius Caesar." Tarkington gained prominence that year at Princeton as a co-author of the play, and as the President of Princeton's Dramatic Association (the name of the club before it was officially changed to "The Triangle Club"). In addition to his membership in and role as founder of The Triangle Club, he was also a member of the [[Ivy Club]], the first of Princeton's historic Eating Clubs.  At Princeton he also edited the "Nassau Literary Magazine".  Tarkington failed to earn his undergraduate degree, the A.B., due to a single missing course in the classics. Nevertheless, his place within campus society was already determined, as he was voted the most popular man in the class for 1893.  In his adult life, he was asked to return to Princeton on two occasions for the conferral of two honorary degrees, an A.M. in 1899 and a Litt.D. in 1918. The conferral of more than one honorary degree on an alumnus at Princeton University remains a record for the institution.