39 Facts About Booth Tarkington

Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.

Booth Tarkington is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead.

Booth Tarkington served one term in the Indiana House of Representatives, was critical of the advent of automobiles, and set many of his stories in the Midwest.

Booth Tarkington eventually removed to Kennebunkport, Maine, where he continued his life work even as he suffered a loss of vision.

Booth Tarkington was named after his maternal uncle Newton Booth, then the governor of California.

Booth Tarkington attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, and completed his secondary education at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school on the East Coast.

Booth Tarkington attended Purdue University for two years, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the university's Morley Eating Club.

Booth Tarkington later made substantial donations to Purdue for building an all-men's residence hall, which the university named Tarkington Hall in his honor.

At Princeton, Booth Tarkington is said to have been known as "Tark" among the members of the Ivy Club, the first of Princeton's historic Eating Clubs.

Booth Tarkington had been in a short-lived eating club called "Ye Plug and Ulster," which became Colonial Club.

Booth Tarkington was active as an actor and served as president of Princeton's Dramatic Association, which later became the Triangle Club, of which he was a founding member according to Triangle's official history.

Booth Tarkington made his first acting appearance in the club's Shakespearean spoof Katherine, one of the first three productions in the Triangle's history written and produced by students.

Booth Tarkington established the Triangle tradition, still alive today, of producing students' plays.

Booth Tarkington returned to the Triangle stage as Cassius in the 1893 production of a play he co-authored, The Honorable Julius Caesar.

Booth Tarkington edited Princeton's Nassau Literary Magazine, known more recently as The Nassau Lit.

Wilson returned to Princeton as a member of the political science faculty shortly before Booth Tarkington departed; they maintained contact throughout Wilson's life.

Booth Tarkington is the only alumnus to have been awarded more than one honorary degree by Princeton University.

Booth Tarkington won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction twice, in 1919 and 1922, for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.

Booth Tarkington won the O Henry Memorial Award in 1931 for his short story "Cider of Normandy".

Booth Tarkington's works appeared frequently on best sellers lists throughout his life.

Booth Tarkington was an unabashed Midwestern regionalist and set much of his fiction in his native Indiana.

Booth Tarkington saw such public service as a responsibility of gentlemen in his socio-economic class, and consistent with his family's extensive record of public service.

Booth Tarkington supported Prohibition, opposed FDR, and worked against FDR's New Deal.

Booth Tarkington was one of the more popular American novelists of his time.

Booth Tarkington himself came from a patrician Midwestern family that lost much of its wealth after the Panic of 1873.

Booth Tarkington dramatized several of his novels; some were eventually filmed including Monsieur Beaucaire, Presenting Lily Mars, and The Adventures and Emotions of Edgar Pomeroy, made into a serialized film in 1920 and 1921.

Booth Tarkington collaborated with Harry Leon Wilson to write three plays.

Booth Tarkington illustrated the books of others, including a 1933 reprint of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as his own.

Booth Tarkington took a close interest in fine art and collectibles, and was a trustee of the John Herron Art Institute.

Booth Tarkington was married to Louisa Fletcher from 1902 until their divorce in 1911.

Booth Tarkington continued producing his works by dictating to his secretary Elizabeth Trotter.

Booth Tarkington had an additional two operations in the latter half of 1930.

Booth Tarkington maintained a home in his native Indiana at 4270 North Meridian in Indianapolis.

From 1923 until his death, Booth Tarkington spent summers and then much of his later life in Kennebunkport at his much loved home, Seawood.

Booth Tarkington's extensively renovated studio is the Kennebunkport Maritime Museum.

Booth Tarkington made a gift of some his papers to Princeton University, his alma mater, and his wife Susannah, who survived him by over 20 years, made a separate gift of his remaining papers to Colby College after his death.

Booth Tarkington is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

Booth Tarkington's works were reprinted many times, were often on best-seller lists, won many prizes, and were adapted into other media.

Dreiser, his exact Indiana contemporary, might look at the Model T and see wage slaves in need of unions and sit-down strikes; Booth Tarkington saw pollution, and a filthy tampering with human nature itself.