The collection Booth Tarkington: Novels & Stories will be published on June 4. (Penguin Random House)
Library of America and Penguin Random House will mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of Pulitzer Prize winner Booth Tarkington with a new edition of The Magnificent Ambersons.
Orson Welles adapted Tarkington’s acclaimed 1918 novel for his second film in 1942.
Later, Welles said that his father, Richard, an inventor of bicycle lamps, had been friends with Tarkington and provided inspiration for the main character, Eugene Morgan.
Tarkington, who died in 1946 in his native Indianapolis, was among the most beloved and widely read writers of his era.
Library of America and Penguin Random House will release the Booth Tarkington: Novels & Stories collection on June 4.
Novels & Stories will contain The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams, both Pulitzer Prize winners.
The two novels will be joined in the volume by the story collection In the Arena: Tales from Political Life, first published in 1905 and then in an expanded edition in 1920. These stories – which exerted influence on Theodore Roosevelt, inspiring perhaps his most famous speech – draw from Tarkington’s political career as a state legislator in Indiana.
The 716-page hardcover will carry a $35 list price.
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