The Magnificent Ambersons

The second book of his Growth trilogy, The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington, was published in 1918. It was made into the 1925 silent picture Pampered Youth after winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature. Orson Welles wrote and directed the movie that was released in 1942. A television adaptation based on Welles' screenplay debuted much later, in 2002. The rise of industrial tycoons and other new money families, who gain influence not through family names but by "doing things," contrasts with the demise of the Ambersons. At the turn of the century, the titular family is the wealthiest and most influential in the community. The patriarch's grandson, George Amberson Minafer, is pampered by his mother, Isabel. George falls in love with Lucy Morgan, a young but astute debutante, despite his conceit, self-assurance, and complete ignorance of the lives of others. George is not aware of the long relationship that exists between Lucy's father and his mother. Industry prospers as the village develops into a city, the Ambersons' fame and fortune decline, and the Morgans, due to Lucy's foresightful father, prosper. Life as George knows it ends when he thwarts his widowed mother's developing feelings for Lucy's father.