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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize when it was first published in 1918, 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.
Today The Magnificent Ambersons is best known through the 1942 Orson Welles movie, but as the critic Stanley Kauffmann noted, "It is high time that [the novel] appear again, to stand outside the force of Welles's genius, confident in its own right."
"The Magnificent Ambersons 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."
At once an exciting chronicle of a family's rise to fortune and its tortured downfall, it is also a fascinating portrait of the forces that shaped American society.
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But the yule holiday has been celebrated for at least two centuries in North America, and our writers have been producing memorable stories about this unique day for almost as long. Here are 29 Christmas stories old and new, tales to delight, to entrance, to beguile, and even to sadden a whole new generation of readers. From C. C. MacApp's view of a Christmas future to Jacob A. Riis's gut-wrenching portraits of the holiday in the 1890s slums of New York to William J. Locke's reenactment of the tale of the Three Wise Men, we experience every possible facet of this most precious day of the year. So sit back and relive your memories once again, as recreated through the eyes of some of the finest writers of their time!
Included in this volume:
INTRODUCTION, by Robert Reginald
THE BLOSSOMING ROD, by Mary Stewart Cutting
AND ALL THE EARTH A GRAVE, by C.C. MacApp
A REVERSIBLE SANTA CLAUS, by Meredith Nicholson
BEASLEY’S CHRISTMAS PARTY, by Booth Tarkington
A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY: THE STORY OF THREE WISE MEN, by William John Locke
BETTY’S BRIGHT IDEA, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
THE FIRST CHRISTMAS OF NEW ENGLAND, by Harriet Beecher Stowe
THE LADY ERMETTA; or, The Sleeping Secret
MR. KRIS KRINGLE: A CHRISTMAS TALE, by S. Weir Mitchell
ROSEMARY: A CHRISTMAS STORY, by C. N. & A. M. Williamson
THE CHRISTMAS CHILD, by Hesba Stretton
THE LITTLE GRAY LADY, by F. Hopkinson Smith
THE ROMANCE OF A CHRISTMAS CARD, by Kate Douglas Wiggin
MR. BAMBOO AND THE HONORABLE LITTLE GOD, by Fannie C. MacAulay
MRS. BUDLONG’S CHRISTMAS PRESENTS, by Rupert Hughes
THE OAK TREE’S CHRISTMAS GIFT, by Julian Hawthorne
THE LONG HILLSIDE: A CHRISTMAS HARE-HUNT IN OLD VIRGINIA, by Thomas Nelson Page
CANDLE AND CRIB, by K. F. Purdon
TOLD AFTER SUPPER, by Jerome K. Jerome
NIBSY’S CHRISTMAS, by Jacob A. Riis
WHAT THE CHRISTMAS SUN SAW IN THE TENEMENTS, by Jacob A. Riis
SKIPPY OF SCRABBLE ALLEY, by Jacob A. Riis
UNCLE NOAH’S CHRISTMAS INSPIRATION, by Leona Dalrymple
THE TRUCE OF GOD, by Mary Roberts Rinehart
THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, by O. Henry
THE LITTLE MIXER, by Lillian Nicholson Shearon
THE POTATO CHILD, by Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
A STORY THAT NEVER ENDS, by Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
A NAZARETH CHRISTMAS, by Mrs. Charles J. Woodbury
And don't forget to search this ebook store for "Megapack" to see other volumes in the series, from science fiction to ghost stories to mysteries...and many more!
Penrod Schofield is the epitome of a precocious twelve-year-old: crafty in his dealings developing a business and mischievous in his interactions at the local grammar school. He is neither a rascal nor a paragon of virtue, but rather an ordinary boy growing up in a rural early-nineteenth-century Indiana town. In these comic sketches by Booth Tarkington, it is up to Penrod, along with his dog, Duke, and friends Sam, Herman, and Verman, to rescue themselves from countless scrapes and humiliations—usually of the adults’ making.
Penrod is deliriously effective in its evocation both of an earlier era and of the unfettered joy of being a young man in a world of bikes, cap guns, and cranky authority figures. Tarkington’s heartwarming story highlights the naiveté of youth—and the hypocrisy of adulthood.
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One of the most popular American authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Pulitzer Prize winner Booth Tarkington was acclaimed for his novels set in small Midwestern towns. Penrod tells of a boy growing up in Indianapolis at the turn of the twentieth century. His friends and his dog accompany him on his many jaunts, from the stage as “the Child Sir Lancelot,” to the playground, to school. They make names for themselves as “bad boys” who always have the most fun. Nearly a century after it was first published to incredible popularity and acclaim, Penrod remains wildly funny and entertaining to adults and children alike.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Alice Adams
Beasley's Christmas Party
The Beautiful Lady
The Conquest of Canaan
The Flirt
Gentle Julia
The Gentleman From Indiana
The Gibson Upright
The Guest of Quesnay
Harlequin and Columbine
His Own People
In the Arena
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Man from Home
Monsieur Beaucaire
Penrod
Penrod and Sam
Ramsey Milholland
Seventeen
The Turmoil
The Two Vanrevels
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize after it was first published in 1918, Tarkington's powerful social commentary traces America's economic growth through the declining fortunes of three generations of the successful and socially prominent Amberson family. Set in a fictional Midwestern town during the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries--the epic story follows the Ambersons' downward spiraling fortunes during a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America.
George Amberson Minafer, the arrogant heir to the family's wealth, illustrates the corrupting influence of greed and materialism at a time when the swiftly turning wheels of industry and commerce are overtaking old ways. Definitions of ambition, success, and loyalty are also changing. Almost overnight the prestige of the Ambersons irreversibly changes as well. An exciting chronicle of one family's accumulation of wealth and subsequent downfall, the book also paints a fascinating portrait of the forces that shaped modern American society.