Alice Adams

Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1921.

Price: $2,000.00

Hardcover. First edition, later state with page 419 corrected. A little foxing on the endpapers and a small crease on the front fly, else about fine in about fine dustwrapper with "3rd Edition" on the spine. The fourth book to win the Pulitzer Prize, and Tarkington's second (making him the first author to win the prize twice). Basis for the 1935 George Stevens film featuring Katharine Hepburn and Fred MacMurray, as well as a 1923 silent film. Very uncommon early edition.

Item #441455

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Item #441455 Alice Adams. Booth TARKINGTON.
Alice Adams

Booth Tarkington
birth name: Newton Booth Tarkington
born: 7/29/1869
died: 5/19/1946
nationality: USA

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Biography

American novelist and dramatist, best known for his satirical and sometimes romanticized pictures of American Midwesterners. - Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literaturemore

Collecting tips:

Booth Tarkington as collectible author is an enigma, wrapped in a contradiction, and drizzled with irony. Ask any book collector or dealer who have been around for a long time and they'll probably shrug -- who cares about Booth Tarkington? But the funny thing is that he has more collected books than many more highly regarded authors. He wrote two of the first four Pulitzer Prize novels, The Magnicent Ambersons (1919) and Alice Adams (1922), both of which are wicked scarce in jacket. The first title is also sought as a film source for the 1942 Orson Welles' film, as are several of his other books including Presenting Lily Mars (1933), Monsieur Beaucaire (1900, the 1924 film featured Rudolph Valentino), and Seventeen (1916). One of the primary guides to collectible children's books is entitled Peter Parley to Penrod, the later title, Penrod (1914), is a Tarkington novel, and very scarce in jacket. Even booksellers have a favorite Tarkington title -- Rumbin Galleries (1937) about a European emigre dealing in art and antiques in New York City, who dispenses wisdom about the antiquarian trades, all the while smiling benevolently upon his lovely assistant and her beamish beau. There is even a market for him as an Indiana author -- notably for his first book, The Gentleman from Indiana (1899, be sure to note whether the ear of corn on the spine of the book is pointing up or down!). He wrote approximately a zillion other books as well, some of them good, many of them forgotten. But then who cares about Booth Tarkington anyway?

Email us to request a printed copy of our catalog of Booth Tarkington Rare Books and First Editions (or download it via the link as a 4.61 MB pdf file).more