Published/Performed: 1918
Author: Booth Tarkington
Born: Jul 29, 1869 Indianapolis, Indiana
Passed: May 19, 1946 Indianapolis, Indiana
Film: The Magnificent Ambersons
Released: 1942
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for 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 directed an acclaimed film version of the book; Welles's original screenplay was the basis of a 2002 TV movie produced by the A&E Network.
"The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," said Van Wyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and town?the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Ambersons, their house, their fate and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end."
While the story is set in a fictitious city, it was inspired by Tarkington's hometown of Indianapolis and the neighborhood he once lived in, Woodruff Place.
The Magnificent Ambersons has been adapted into film three times: In 1925 under the title Pampered Youth, an award-winning 1942 film directed by Orson Welles, and a 2002 made for television film.
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