1923
Father dies in January. Laurel continues to show mental distress; she contracts pneumonia and dies on April 13. The Fascinating Stranger and Other Stories is published in April. Tweedles, revised version of an unperformed comedy written with Wilson several years before, opens on Broadway to good reviews, unlike his play Magnolia, which is panned and closes after a few weeks. Moves out of family home; for the portion of every year he spends in Indianapolis, will now live in a large house he has bought at 4270 North Meridian Street, away from the city center. Movie Boy of Mine, with scenario written by Tarkington, is released in December by First National Pictures. Limited edition of The Midlander is published by Doubleday, Page in December, with a trade edition following in January.
1924
Stops writing for the theater for several years, though his plays, including several one-acts, continue to be brought out in book form. Writes short stories that will be collected in Women. Dislikes film adaptation of Monsieur Beaucaire starring Rudolph Valentino (“I don’t know what Mr. Valentino was doing, but it certainly wasn’t my intention”).
1925
Takes six months off from writing to visit North Africa and to make what will be his final trip to Europe, traveling by car from Algiers to Tunis before crossing the Mediterranean for Sicily, which he also tours by car; visits several Italian cities, spends five weeks in Paris (where he sees F. Scott Fitzgerald and meets Hemingway), and sails back to the United States in early June. Works on novel The Plutocrat, which draws from his recent travels, as does the novel that follows, Claire Ambler. Women is published in November. Is sued for $500,000 by a Texas woman claiming he has stolen her scenario for the film Boy of Mine, but the case is thrown out of court.
1926
Hello, Lola!, musical of Seventeen with book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly and music by William B. Kernell, has its New York premiere on January 15. Vision becomes increasingly impaired.
1927
The Plutocrat is published in January. Collects The Magnificent Ambersons, The Turmoil, and The Midlander (under the title National Avenue) in one volume, Growth.
1928
Gives extensive editorial advice to Kenneth Roberts on the plot, structure, and prose of the novel Arundel, as he will for several of Roberts’s books. Autobiographical essay collection The World Does Move is published by Doubleday, Doran in November. His vision deteriorating, he begins dictating his writing to his secretary, Betty Trotter. In November, goes to Baltimore in preparation for eye surgery conducted by William Wilmer, a noted ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins.
1929
Undergoes eye surgery in February, the first of five such procedures performed over the next two years. Works on final play, Colonel Satan, a drama about Aaron Burr, after he is asked to take on the subject by the actor George Arliss (who will later decline to play the role in George Tyler’s Broadway production). Novel Young Mrs. Greeley is serialized in Ladies’ Home Journal from March to May and is published by Doubleday, Doran, which also brings out new Penrod collection, Penrod Jashber, in September. Play How’s Your Health?, written with Wilson most likely in 1923, runs for forty-seven performances on Broadway.
1930
Works on novel Mirthful Haven, published in book form in September, the title’s locale a stand-in for Kennebunkport. Begins to be represented by Carl Brandt, who will be his agent for the rest of his life. Writes dialogue for The Millionaire, movie starring George Arliss. Vision fails completely in August, and he is rushed from Maine to Baltimore for an operation on his right eye, which is followed by two additional operations in the latter half of the year.
1931
Completes recovery after the last of his eye surgeries and, after five months of blindness, is able to see better than he has in years, though his physical energy is diminished for the rest of his life. Colonel Satan opens on Broadway but fails to win over the critics and closes after seventeen performances. Having built up a modest art collection, begins to devote more attention to the acquisition of art and takes advantage of a fall in prices to buy many Old Master paintings. Collects three Penrod books in Penrod: His Complete Story.
1932
Novel Mary’s Neck is brought out by Doubleday, Doran in February; a historical novel set in Restoration England and inspired by two portraits he owns, Wanton Mally, is published in November after being serialized in Ladies’ Home Journal. Writes novella Pretty Twenty, which is serialized but never collected in book form.
1933
Receives gold medal from National Institute of Arts and Letters. Writes a juvenile radio serial based in part on Gentle Julia that is broadcast three times a week on WJZ in New York City. In June, the first of his many stories about seven-year-old protagonist “Little Orvie” is published in The Saturday Evening Post. Novel Presenting Lily Mars is published in August. In November, radio play “The Help Each Other Club,” about unemployed young people during the Depression written for the United Charities Campaign and the Boy Scouts, is broadcast on CBS and NBC; Tarkington, who prospers during the Depression through his still-popular fiction, tends to avoid public political engagement but opposes the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, reflecting a core conservatism that elicits negative views of his work from writers and critics during the 1930s.
1934–35
Completes novella This Boy Joe but American Magazine, which commissioned it, rejects it; the version published in the Chicago Tribune in the summer of 1935 contains significant and unauthorized cuts. Novella Rennie Peddigoe is serialized in Women’s Home Companion, December 1934–April 1935. RKO film adaptation of Alice Adams starring Katharine Hepburn, for which she will receive an Oscar nomination, is released in August 1935. Little Orvie stories are collected in book form. Novel The Lorenzo Bunch is serialized in McCall’s, July–November 1935, though its editors ask for changes, only some of which Tarkington agrees to; final chapter is published only in book version, which comes out early the following year.
1936–39
First of numerous stories featuring the art dealer Mr. Rumbin is published in The Saturday Evening Post in January 1936. Many are collected in Rumbin Galleries, brought out in October 1937 by Doubleday, Doran. Sues Warner Brothers on copyright grounds because its Penrod and His Twin Brother has not used any of Tarkington’s material other than the boy’s name. Stage adaptations of Seventeen and Aromatic Aaron Burr, rewritten version of Colonel Satan, are performed in Kennebunkport in the summer of 1938, followed the next summer by Karabash, a rewrite of his anti-communist play Podelkin, along with his one-act The Ghost Story and Tweedles. Novella Uncertain Mrs. Collicut appears in Pictorial Review, December 1938. In July 1939 profile in The New York Times, expresses his long-held view that technological and social changes—most especially the rise of the automobile—have diminished the richness and vigor of American life: “When the old livery stable was cleaned up and took on the odor of gasoline . . . then something went out from American life,” adding, “I wonder if the people as a whole are either as happy or as cultured as their parents were. They are surely not as hardy.” Some Old Portraits: A Book About Art and Human Beings, discussing works from his own collection, is published in November 1939 by Doubleday, Doran. Begins writing novel “Today and Forever,” published in 1941 as The Heritage of Hatcher Ide (title changed because the same title had been given to a forthcoming Pearl S. Buck book; Tarkington’s novel was serialized as “The Man of the Family”).
1940
Having long rejected honorary degrees because of his reluctance to make public appearances, accepts a degree from Purdue University because the ceremony is held at his Indianapolis home. Publicly supports presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie, a personal acquaintance; his letter to Indiana U.S. senator Frederick Van Nuys urging passage of Lend-Lease Bill over the objections of many of the senator’s constituents is published in Life magazine. Writes Lady Hamilton and Her Nelson, p
ropagandistic radio play urging national readiness for war. Joins board of the John Herron Art Institute (later the Indianapolis Museum of Art) and chairs its Fine Arts Committee.
1941
Reminiscences of childhood and early adulthood, “As I Seem to Me,” are serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. Settles out of court with Warner Brothers on Penrod lawsuit, receiving a small amount in damages and a promise that any future use of the Penrod character is subject to his approval. The Fighting Littles, novel based in part on stories published as far back as 1937 (one of which had been rejected by The Saturday Evening Post as “anti–New Deal propaganda”), appears in the fall.
1942
Writes for government agencies and publishes editorials in support of the war effort in magazines, as he will do for the duration of World War II. Joins Coast Guard Auxiliary and uses his personal motorboat to patrol the Maine coast near Kennebunkport. The Saturday Evening Post requests a serial about a man whose successful career in business is due to his wife but rejects his submission, which is then serialized as “The Hardest Wife to Be” in Ladies’ Home Journal (June–September) and published as the novel Kate Fennigan the following year.
1943
Asked by The Saturday Evening Post to write something to accompany a Norman Rockwell illustration extolling freedom of speech, submits story about a fanciful meeting between Hitler and Mussolini before either man rose to power. Eight of his plays are performed in the Pasadena Playhouse’s annual summer festival in Pasadena, California.
1944
As Fine Arts Committee chairman, dismissively rejects the Herron Art Institute’s proposed purchase of a Cubist painting by Picasso. Enthusiastically reviews Willkie’s One World and writes letter to Indiana Republicans urging them to eschew isolationism in a postwar world and confront global problems, noting, “When the next war comes all of the military powers concerned will almost certainly be in possession of an implement able to wipe out such a city as New York within ten minutes so effectively that no living being could get anywhere near the place during the next three or four months.” Works on novel The Image of Josephine, drawing from his experience as a trustee at the Herron.
1945
Just after an abridged version of The Image of Josephine appears in American Magazine as “Lovely Hellion,” book version is published in February. Awarded William Dean Howells medal from American Academy of Arts and Letters. Works on unfinished novel The Show Piece. Novella Walterson is serialized in Good Housekeeping, October–November.
1946
Makes final public appearance when he attends a performance of a stage adaptation of Alice Adams undertaken by his secretary, Betty Trotter. Falls ill later in March, and begins to lose strength precipitously; is unable to make his yearly move to Kennebunkport. Dies on May 19 at home. Buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Note on the Texts
This volume contains Booth Tarkington’s novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921), along with the collection In the Arena: Stories of Political Life (1905).
One of the most popular authors of his time, Tarkington wrote prolifically and, except for periods when he was traveling abroad, maintained a demanding daily schedule of writing throughout his career. Tarkington usually did not revise his works after they were published; the texts of his novels were not reset for collected editions brought out during his lifetime, such as the Autograph Edition (1918–28) and the Seawood Edition (1922–28). Therefore the texts of the works printed here are taken from their first American editions. Tarkington did make some changes to the three previously published novels that were brought together as the Growth trilogy in 1927, including The Magnificent Ambersons. On the whole he made these revisions, which were significant though not extensive, to loosely connect the three novels and make them seem more unified. (A lengthy variant passage in the Growth version of The Magnificent Ambersons is given in this volume’s Notes.)
The Magnificent Ambersons was written in 1917, during a time when Tarkington was devoting most of his other efforts as a writer to supporting the war effort. Serialized in Metropolitan from December 1917 to September 1918, the novel was published in October 1918 by Doubleday, Page & Company in New York and by Hodder & Stoughton in London (as with the other books collected here, the novel was not revised for the English publication). Translations into Swedish and German followed in 1919. The novel garnered Tarkington the first of his two Pulitzer Prizes. This volume prints the text of the 1918 Doubleday, Page edition of The Magnificent Ambersons.
Alice Adams was completed over a relatively short span of time in the summer of 1920, while Tarkington was living at his Kennebunkport, Maine, home. The novel was published in installments in Pictorial Review, February–May 1921, and was brought out in book form by Doubleday, Page & Company in May. An error in the first printing, “I can’t see you why don’t” (508.13), was corrected to “I can’t see why you don’t” in later printings and is also corrected here. Hodder & Stoughton’s English edition was published in October. In 1922 Tarkington was awarded his second Pulitzer Prize, for Alice Adams. The 1921 Doubleday, Page edition contains the text printed here.
Tarkington wrote the stories collected in In the Arena not long after the end of his brief career as a politician in 1903 (see Chronology). “Boss Gorgett” and “The Aliens” were composed first, while Tarkington was vacationing with his first wife that spring in French Lick, Indiana. Four of the six stories appeared in magazines before In the Arena was published in book form by McClure, Phillips & Company in late January 1905: “Boss Gorgett” in Everybody’s Magazine, December 1903; “The Aliens” in McClure’s, February 1904; “The Need of Money” in McClure’s, November 1904; and “Hector” in Everybody’s Magazine, December 1904.
“In the First Place,” the volume’s preface, drew inspiration from Tarkington’s meeting with Theodore Roosevelt at the White House shortly before Christmas 1904. Roosevelt had invited the author for a visit because he had read and admired Tarkington’s political stories in magazines. He wrote to Roosevelt that the preface “was almost directly your suggestion. When, in last December, I had the honor of lunching with you, you spoke of the danger that my purpose in these stories might be misunderstood, and that exhibiting too much of the uglier side [of politics] might have no good effect. So I prefixed the Preface, hoping that if you happened to see it you would believe that the professor was at least trying to do his best.”
In April 1905, a few months after its American publication, In the Arena was published by John Murray in London. The text printed here is taken from the 1905 McClure, Phillips & Company edition of In the Arena.
This volume presents the texts of the original printings chosen for inclusion here, but it does not attempt to reproduce nontextual features of their typographic design. The texts are presented without change, except for the correction of typographical errors. Spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are often expressive features and are not altered, even when inconsistent or irregular. The following is a list of typographical errors corrected, cited by page and line number of the hardcover edition: 8.18, Diavola.”; 24.33, papier-maché; 38.11, I I was; 40.3, they were; 49.17, girls’; 50.3, sympathetically, Well,; 89.11, Dr; 94.2, though; 96.22, me,; 104.19, says, lately.”; 120.2, Class.; 138.17, Better——.”; 172.27, toknow; 178.30, “Goodnight.”; 186.16, bend; 238.17, that he; 306.9, door; 312.10, In; 328.27, slap you-on-the-back; 329.30, made; 335.32, matter.; 365.6, room.’; 382.26, o ‘me; 387.18, were!’; 446.21, chiamo; 466.1, ‘shouldn’t.’”; 467.8, here.; 473.19, worry,; 478.12, minute.”; 485.4, Mrs; 508.13, you why; 530.12, and is; 536.34, sharp,; 570.24, ironmoulders’,; 571.30, “I agree; 573.36, your’s; 606.12, do?; 618.16, State-house; 625.5, have.”; 630.37, sencere!.
Notes
In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the hardcover edition (the line count includes headings). These notes, as well as the Chr
onology and Note on the Texts, were prepared in-house at Library of America and were reviewed and approved by this volume’s editor. No note is made for material included in standard desk-reference books. Quotations from Shakespeare are keyed to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). Biblical quotations are keyed to the King James Version. For further biographical information than is included in the Chronology, see America Moved: Booth Tarkington’s Memoirs of Time and Place, 1869–1928, ed. Jeremy Beer (Eugene, OR: Front Porch Republic Books, 2015); Dorothy Ritter Russo and Thelma L. Sullivan, A Bibliography of Booth Tarkington, 1869–1946 (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1949); and James Woodress, Booth Tarkington: Gentleman from Indiana (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1955).
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
3.5 Magnificent Lorenzo] The Florentine ruler and arts patron Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–1492), known as “the Magnificent.”
4.4 “congress gaiters”] Ankle-high boots designed for comfort, with elastic inserts in the sides for flexibility.
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