The Magnificent Ambersons

Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1918. First edition of the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, basis for the classic Orson Wells film often regarded as among the greatest films of all time. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery with gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panel, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on a page bound in, " For Rose and John Narteau from Florence and John Jameson and inscribed, with pleasure by Booth Tarkington Indianapolis February 26, 1945." In fine condition. An exceptional presentation. The Magnificent Ambersons chronicles the changing fortunes of three generations of an American dynasty. The protagonist of Booth Tarkington's great historical drama is George Amberson Minafer, the spoiled and arrogant grandson of the founder of the family's magnificence. Eclipsed by a new breed of developers, financiers, and manufacturers, this pampered scion begins his gradual descent from the midwestern aristocracy to the working class. It is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," judged 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." 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. Listed by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the twentieth century.