Other editions of book The Magnificent Ambersons: A 1918 novel written by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize

Complete and unabridged paperback edition. The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel written by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil (1915) and The Midlander (1923). The story is set in a largely fictionalized version of Indianapolis, and much of it was inspired by the neighborhood of Woodruff Place.Description from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Excerpt from The Magnificent Ambersons: IllustratedIn that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a new purchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by. Trotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs on National Avenue and Tennes see Street; everybody recognized both the trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summer evenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time rivalry. For that matter, everybody knew everybody else's family horse-and-car riage, could identify such a silhouette half a mile down the street, and thereby was sure who was going to market, or to a reception, or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening supper.During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearance was believed to rest more upon the texture of gar ments than upon their shaping. A silk dress needed no remodel ling when it' was a year or so old; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. Old men and governors wore broadcloth; full dress was broadcloth with doeskin trousers; and there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only that rigid, tall silk thing known to impudence as a stove-pipe. In town and country these men would wear no other hat, and, without self~consciousness, they went rowing in such hats.Shifting fashions of shape replaced aristocracy of texture: dress makers, shoemakers, hatmakers, and tailors, increasing in cun ning and in power, found means to make new clothes old. The long contagion of the Derby hat arrived: one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket; the next it would be a spoon. Every house still kept its bootjack, but high-topped boots gave way to shoes and congress gaiters; and these were played through fashions that shaped them now with toes like box-ends and now with toes like the prows of racing shells.Trousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the crease proved that the garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was ready-made these betraying trousers were called hand-me downs, in allusion to the shelf. In the early 'eighties, while bangs and bustles were having their way with women, that variation of dandy known as the dude was invented: he wore trousers as tight as stockings, dagger-pointed shoes, a spoon Derby, a single-breasted coat called a Chesterfield, with short flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar, laundered to a polish and three inches high, while his other neckgear might be a heavy, puffed cravat or a tiny bow fit for a doll's braids. With evening dress he wore a tan overcoat so short that his black coat-tails hung visible, five inches below the overcoat; but after a season or two he lengthened his overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tight trousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently, he was seen no more, though the word that had been coined for him remained in the vocabularies of the im pertinent.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Set in the Midwest in the early twentieth century-the dawn of the automobile age-The Magnificent Ambersons begins by introducing the Ambersons, the richest family in town. Exemplifying aristocratic excess, the Ambersons have everything money can buy-and more. But George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled grandson of the family patriarch, is unable to see that great societal changes are taking place and that business tycoons, industrialists, and real estate developers will soon surpass him in wealth and prestige. Rather than join the new mechanical age, George prefers to remain a gentleman, believing that "being things" is superior to "doing things." But as his town becomes a city, and the family palace is enveloped in a cloud of soot, George's protectors disappear one by one, and the elegant, cloistered lifestyle of the Ambersons fades from view and finally vanishes altogether.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Set during the dawning of the twentieth century, The Magnificent Ambersons concerns itself with the impact of mechanical innovation on the bucolic life styles of a Midwestern town. As the novel opens, the gulf between prominent families and their aristocratic lives are contrasted with those in society whose main purpose it is to support this luxurious and frivolous existence. The aristocracy is personified by the Amberson family, wealthy and prominent, and particularly by George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled grandson of the family's founder. He is unable to understand that a great revolution is taking place around him, that the lifestyle he has always known is soon to become anachronistic as those people with talent, luck and a little capital will soon surpass him in wealth and prestige. Although he has the talent to join this new mechanical age, he prefers to be and to remain a gentleman and to believe that "being things" is far superior to "doing things." As the town grows and expands and becomes more and more industrial, and even as the Amberson family compound becomes surrounded by apartment buildings and factories, George is unable to accept the fact that he and his family are becoming irrelevant. As the town quickly turns into a dirty and depressing city and the Amberson fortune begins to crumble, he still dresses for dinner, still drives a horse and cart, and still holds to his standards "as a gentleman." Tarkington weaves in subplots involving the love story of George's widowed mother and the Henry Ford-like Eugene Morgan as well as George's own romantic involvement with Morgan's daughter.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface.We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Magnificent Ambersons is a novel written 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 the title Pampered Youth. In 1942 Orson Welles wrote and directed an acclaimed film adaptation of the book. Welles's original screenplay was the basis of a 2002 TV movie produced by the A&E Network. The story is set in a largely fictionalized version of Indianapolis, and much of it was inspired by the neighborhood of Woodruff Place. The novel and trilogy trace the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in an upper-scale Indianapolis neighborhood, between the end of the Civil War and the early part of the 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new-money families, who derived power not from family names but by "doing things". As George Amberson's friend (name unspecified) says, "don't you think being things is 'rahthuh bettuh' than doing things?" The titular family is the most prosperous and powerful in town at the turn of the century. Young George Amberson Minafer, the patriarch's grandson, is spoiled terribly by his mother Isabel. Growing up arrogant, sure of his own worth and position, and totally oblivious to the lives of others, George falls in love with Lucy Morgan, a young though sensible debutante. But there is a long history between George's mother and Lucy's father, of which George is unaware. As the town grows into a city, industry thrives, the Ambersons' prestige and wealth wanes, and the Morgans, thanks to Lucy's prescient father, grow prosperous. When George sabotages his widowed mother's growing affections for Lucy's father, life as he knows it comes to an end.