The Magnificent Ambersons (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) - Softcover

Tarkington, Booth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1593082630 ISBN 13: 9781593082635

Publisher: Sterling Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LI&&RThe Magnificent Ambersons&&L/I&&R, by &&LB&&RBooth Tarkington&&L/B&&R, is part of the &&LI&&R&&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics&&L/I&&R &&L/I&&Rseries, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics&&L/I&&R: &&LDIV&&R

• New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
• Biographies of the authors
• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
• Footnotes and endnotes
• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
• Comments by other famous authors
• Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
• Bibliographies for further reading
• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. &&LI&&RBarnes & Noble Classics &&L/I&&Rpulls together a constellation of influences―biographical, historical, and literary―to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R &&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&RLargely overshadowed by Orson Welles’s famous 1941 screen version, &&LB&&RBooth Tarkington&&L/B&&R’s novel &&LI&&RThe Magnificent Ambersons&&L/I&&R was not only a best-seller when it first appeared in 1918―it also won the Pulitzer Prize.&&LBR&&R&&LBR&&RSet in the Midwest in the early twentieth century―the dawn of the automobile age―the novel begins by introducing the richest family in town, the Ambersons. Exemplifying aristocratic excess, the Ambersons have everything money can buy―and more. But George Amberson Minafer―the spoiled grandson of the family patriarch―is unable to see that great societal changes are taking place, and that business tycoons, industrialists, and real estate developers will soon surpass him in wealth and prestige. Rather than join the new mechanical age, George prefers to remain a gentleman, believing that “being things” is superior to “doing things.” But as his town becomes a city, and the family palace is enveloped in a cloud of soot, George’s protectors disappear one by one, and the elegant, cloistered lifestyle of the Ambersons fades from view, and finally vanishes altogether.&&LBR&&R&&LBR&&RA brilliant portrayal of the changing landscape of the American dream, &&LI&&RThe Magnificent Ambersons&&L/I&&R is a timeless classic that deserves a wider modern audience.&&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R &&L/DIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LDIV&&R&&LB&&RNahma Sandrow&&L/B&&R has written extensively about theater and cultural history, including the books &&LI&&RVagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater&&L/I&&R and &&LI&&RSurrealism: Theater, Arts, Ideas&&L/I&&R. For many years a professor at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York, she has lectured at Oxford University, Harvard University, the Smithsonian, and elsewhere.&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R&&L/DIV&&R

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

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."

From the Back Cover:

Winner of the Pulizer Prize for Fiction

The Magnificent Ambersons is the epic story of an American family's traumatic tumble from the dizzying heights of fame and fortune. A dynasty spanning three generations, the Ambersons' pre-eminence as society's elite is threatened -- not only by a hungry new breed of industrial entrepreneur -- but from its own arrogance and greed. At the center of the story is George Amberson Minafer, the pampered but pitiful, scion of the clan upon whose shoulders the fate of the family fortune will be won...or lost.

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sterling Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1593082630
• ISBN 13: 9781593082635
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336