author
Percy Marks
1891–1956
Best known for the once-scandalous campus novel The Plastic Age, this American writer turned his experience as a teacher into fiction that caught the mood of college life in the 1920s. He went on to write widely about ambition, education, and American life.
1 Audiobook
The Plastic Age
by Percy Marks
About the author
Percy Marks was an American novelist and English instructor born in Covelo, California, on September 9, 1891. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and later earned a master's degree from Harvard. Before becoming known as a full-time writer, he taught English at several schools and colleges, including Brown University.
His breakthrough came with The Plastic Age in 1924, a bestselling novel about college life that stirred controversy for its frank treatment of drinking, sex, and student culture. The book made him nationally known, and he continued publishing novels, stories, essays, and nonfiction over the following decades.
Marks wrote around twenty books and remained closely associated with writing and teaching throughout his career. He died in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 27, 1956. His reputation still rests largely on The Plastic Age, a novel remembered for capturing both the excitement and the unease of modern campus life.