Booth Tarkington

Born in Indianapolis in 1869, Booth Tarkington became one of the most widely read American writers of the early 20th century. He studied at Purdue and Princeton and went on to build a career as a novelist, playwright, and short-story writer, drawing again and again on the manners, ambitions, and blind spots of American middle- and upper-class life.

He is especially remembered for The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, a rare achievement. Readers were drawn to the way he could be funny and affectionate at the same time, especially when writing about the Midwest, social climbing, family pride, and the unsettling pace of modern change.

Tarkington remained a major literary name for decades, and several of his works were adapted for stage and screen. Though his reputation has shifted over time, his best-known books still offer a vivid picture of American life in the years when the country was moving from a smaller-town past into a modern age.