num_pages: 237
description: " The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," wrote critic 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."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.
language: English
title: The Magnificent Ambersons
titlecomplete: The Magnificent Ambersons
characters: Eugene Morgan, George Amberson Minafer, Lucy Morgan, Isabel Amberson Minafer
genres: 20th Century, Literature, American, Classics, Literary Fiction, Novels, Historical Fiction, Fiction, The United States Of America, Classic Literature
ratings_count: 11327
places: Indianapolis, Indiana, Indiana
series: The Growth Trilogy
awards: awardedAt: -1609430400000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: Novel
publisher: Dover Publications