Booth Tarkington: 135 books

Throughout history, bit players on the sidelines have somehow become embroiled in the most notorious scandals, finding themselves wrapped up in intrigue with far-reaching consequences they could never have imagined. That's exactly what happens to the eponymous protagonist of Booth Tarkington's novel,...

Booth Tarkington served in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1902; bosses, dirty tricks, vote fraud, and smoke-filled rooms bring these short fiction pieces about politics to life. Collected in 1905, the book includes “Boss Gorget,” “The Aliens,” “The Need of Money,” “Hector,” “Mrs. Protheroe,” and “Great Men’s Sons.”

Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family Especially William is a humorous novel by Booth Tarkington that gently satirizes first love, in the person of a callow 17-year-old, William Sylvanus Baxter. Seventeen takes place in a small city in the Midwestern United States shortly...

The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for the novel. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil (1915) and The Midlander (1923, retitled National Avenue in 1927). In 1925 the novel was first adapted for film under...

Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family Especially William is a humorous novel by Booth Tarkington that gently satirizes first love, in the person of a callow 17-year-old, William Sylvanus Baxter. Seventeen takes place in a small city in the Midwestern United States shortly...

Stoke the fire, grab a cup of hot cocoa, and curl up with this heartwarming Christmas tale from beloved American author Booth Tarkington. Set in an unnamed state in the Midwest, Beasley's Christmas Party follows the adventures of a journalist who has just moved to town to join the staff of the local...

Stoke the fire, grab a cup of hot cocoa, and curl up with this heartwarming Christmas tale from beloved American author Booth Tarkington. Set in an unnamed state in the Midwest, Beasley's Christmas Party follows the adventures of a journalist who has just moved to town to join the staff of the local...

Throughout history, bit players on the sidelines have somehow become embroiled in the most notorious scandals, finding themselves wrapped up in intrigue with far-reaching consequences they could never have imagined. That's exactly what happens to the eponymous protagonist of Booth Tarkington's novel,...

Alice Adams is a 1921 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Booth Tarkington. It was adapted as a film in 1923 by Rowland V. Lee and, more famously, in 1935 by George Stevens. The narrative centers on the character of a young woman, Alice Adams, who aspires to climb the social ladder and win the affections...

This early novel by Tarkington (1903) tells the story of two men vying for the attentions of the same woman, Sylvia.  Mr. Sudgeberry, the narrator, is a loquacious pedant.   William Fentriss is a happy-go-lucky ne'er-do-well.  Comic sparks are struck as the two men seek to undermine each other in Sylvia's eyes.

This 1919 stage collaboration between Tarkington and Wilson identifies some fallacies of socialism. Andrew Gibson, owner of a piano company that manufactures the "Gibson Upright," is threatened by a strike. When Gibson cedes ownership of the company, the workers learn that it is not so easy to manage a business.

Tarkington’s second novel (1900), set in 18th-century England, spawned two movies, a play, and an operetta. Beaucaire, barber to the French Ambassador, blackmails his way into high society and the interest of Lady Mary Carlisle, and is soon over his head in a whirlwind of duels, highwaymen, card-cheats, masquerades, and intrigue.

Published in 1915, this was the first novel in Tarkington's Growth trilogy, which continued in The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.  Set in a Midwestern city, The Turmoil focuses on two families: the Sheridans sacrifice integrity on the altar of wealth and power, while the Vertrees cling to respectability at the cost of poverty.

Written while Tarkington was living in Paris in 1907, The Guest of Quesnay tells the provocative story of Larabee Harmon, the most profligate rich American in France, who is involved in an open extramarital affair with a Spanish dancer, Mariana. After  the illicit lovers are critically injured in an...