Marquand, An American Life

Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, Little Brown, 1979 Hard cover 8vo, in tan linen with blue paper-covered boards, in a pictorial dust jacket with author photo, now in mylar, stated First Edition, (xv), 537pp. Condition: Very Good in a Very Good Dust Jacket. Owner name in ballpoint to ffep.**Literary biography of John P. Marquand (1893 -1960), journalist, Newburyport-resident, and novelist whose work has been compared to that of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Lewis, in the category of "great twentieth-century American authors." Winner of a Pulitzer Prize, he was named "the most successful novelist" by Life Magazine in 1944. The Biographer, Millicent Bell, gleans her observations on the author's need for recognition and success from the stratified society he generally satirized. Using Marquand's own writings, correspondence and interviews with his contemporaries, she also manages to paint a nuanced portrait of the places--Harvard, Curzun's Mill at Newburyport, Boston, which shaped the man and his career. Known for the Mr. Moto spy series (1937-57), Marquand also wrote a number of novels, including The Unspeakable Gentleman (1922), The Late George Apley (1937) and Wickford Point (1939.) Dr. Bell was Professor of English at Boston University for many years, and wrote other titles on Hawthorne, Edith Wharton and Henry James. . Stated First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good.