Topic: Booth Tarkington

Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869 – May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only three novelists (the others being William Faulkner and John Updike) to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once.

Booth Tarkington was born Newton Booth Tarkington in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was the son of John S. Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington, and named after his maternal uncle Newton Booth, then the governor of California. Tarkington was also related to Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth through his wife Almyra Booth Woodworth.

Tarkington first attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, but completed his secondary education at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school on the East Coast. Tarkington attended Purdue University for two years, where he was a member of the university's Morley Eating Club. He then transferred to Princeton University for another two years, where he was a member of the Ivy Club. He never officially graduated from either university. Booth Tarkington made substantial donations to Purdue for the building of an all-men's residence hall, which the university named Tarkington Hall, in his honor. It also awarded him an honorary degree.