Download or read book The Rector of Justin written by Louis Auchincloss and published by HMH. This book was released on 2002-07-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[A] certifiable masterpiece” from the acclaimed chronicler of New York City’s old money elite (The New York Observer). Widely considered Louis Auchincloss’s greatest novel, The Rector of Justin is an astute dissection of the social mores of the Northeast’s privileged establishment. The story centers on Rev. Frank Prescott, the charismatic founder and rector of a prestigious Episcopal school for boys. With laser-sharp insight, Auchincloss delivers a prismatic portrait of this commanding and complicated man through the eyes of those who knew—or thought they knew—him best. Seamlessly interweaving multiple points of view—from an adoring teacher to that of a rebellious daughter—The Rector of Justin presents a social history of the eighty years of his life: the sources of his virtues and failings, his successes, his love, and his crises of faith. As Jonathan Yardley put it in the Washington Post, “Auchincloss is one of the most accomplished and distinctive writers this country has known . . . [and] Frank Prescott is one of the great characters in American fiction.” “A daring and ambitious book . . . Its poise and taste and intelligence strike one on every page, as do its unerring knowledge and literary skill.” —The New Yorker “[The Rector of Justin] should sit on the shelf of any serious reader of American fiction.” —Jay Parini, The New York Observer “A taut and elegant study of a distinguished American whose closest friends cannot decide whether they like or detest him.” —The Times Literary Supplement “Fascinating . . . We do come to feel the reality, the complicated reality, of Francis Prescott.” —Saturday Review “My favorite of Auchincloss’s novels. Both decadent and demanding, high-hat and frank . . . A subversive in lace-up oxfords and rep tie.” —Amy Bloom
Download or read book Richelieu written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Penguin Putnam. This book was released on 1972 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of the French cardinal and statesman analyzes the genius that led Richelieu to become a tremendous influence and France and the world, in a volume featuring numerous period illustrations.
Download or read book Manhattan Monologues written by Louis Auchincloss and published by HMH. This book was released on 2002-07-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a New York Times–bestselling author, short stories of the privileged class, spanning a century of New York history:“Urbane, humorous . . . a treat to read.” —Library Journal Sublime master of manners, exquisite critic of the upper crust, and beloved American author Louis Auchincloss is at his wry, brilliant best with this collection of ten short stories about New York aristocracy. Drawing on a century of Manhattan high society, Auchincloss weaves a set of perfectly crafted, intimate portrayals of the struggles and dramas of the elite. From a woman faced with choosing love or prestige when marrying to a man torn between loyalty to his family and country when called to war to a matchmaker handling a rogue romance, these glamorous yet all-too-human tales present a remarkable tableau of the American upper class. A series of “finely etched portraits of the kind of men we’ve become used to meeting in [Auchincloss’s] fiction,” Manhattan Monologues stands as a remarkable achievement of short fiction, a legend of American letters at his insightful best (The New York Times Book Review). “For the sheer elegance of his prose, Louis Auchincloss deserves a large and enthusiastic following.” —The Baltimore Sun
Download or read book A Voice from Old New York written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2010 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A posthumously published self-assessment by the former president of the Academy of Arts and Letters includes coverage of such topics as his father's depression and the dynamics of life inside and outside of his society circles. By the author of The Rector of Justin.
Download or read book Diary of a Yuppie written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1986-09-10 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel by the author of Honorable Men, a hot-shot corporate lawyer will sacrifice anything for success in 1980s Manhattan. Bob Service is a thirty-two-year-old crack lawyer with blood as cold and clear as a five-dollar martini. His god is power, and his morals are ever tempered by expediency. His goals far exceed an imminent partnership in a big New York law firm. Bob’s “perfect” marriage to Alice, a graceful and intelligent literary agent, is no match for the ardor of his corporate drive. And it certainly pales beside his explosive affair with Sylvia, whose naked ambition matches his own and whose social connections provide the ultimate bridge to the pinnacles of success. How Bob marches toward his fate while trampling on his associates and crippling his marriage forms the plot of this fast-paced novel about 1980s mores and life on the fast track of the big law firms. Office intrigue and duels for power rival anything that Machiavelli could have conjured up. And it all has an unnervingly authentic ring... Praise for Diary of a Yuppie “Absorbing and fun . . . It is refreshing to find characters who are willing to discuss the spiritual dimensions of their business decisions, the ethics of their trade.” —New York Times “Because greed and glory aren’t exclusive to Wall St.—Auchincloss turf—this most moral of fictions deserves a wide audience.” —Kirkus Reviews “This brief contemporary novel explores the ethics of loyalty in business, love, and friendship. Auchincloss, a prolific novelist of manners, is also a Wall Street attorney, and his shallow, ambitious characters ring true . . . [A] subtle, memorable book.” —Library Journal
Download or read book Fellow Passengers written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1989-03-20 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this novel by the author of The Golden Calves set in 1930s high society, a young man recounts the people in his life and what he’s learned from them. This superb gallery of portraits gathers its wit and resonance from the discerning eye of the central narrator, Dan Ruggles, who in the course of unraveling the dreams, doubts, and loyalties of those around him inevitably reveals his own. Dan spends his boyhood in the company of old-money aunts from Bar Harbor and polo-playing uncles from Argentina. He stumbles upon the complexities of adulthood at Yale in the 1930s, and grows to worldly maturity at the Wall Street law firm that provides him not only with a vocation but with seemingly endless material for his fiction. Fellow passengers are the people in his life, each one a story and each one a lesson. Only Auchincloss can ferret out with such precision and understanding the secrets, foibles, and ironies that lie just beneath the proper Establishment surface. This is Louis Auchincloss at the top of his form—a book to please his many admirers and delightful introduction for new readers as well. Praise for Fellow Passengers “This gallery of American upper-class characters, Auchincloss’s 41st book, reflects the acutely perceptive insight that distinguishes much of his fiction. Lineage, the right schools, clubs and marriages are of crucial concern to the matrons, debutantes, establishment bankers and lawyers whose vapid lives, as revealed in these stories, often founder on underpinnings of dark secrets and skewed loyalties . . . . Richly entertaining vignettes.” —Publishers Weekly
Download or read book The Young Apollo and Other Stories written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together 12 previously unpublished pieces, this collection sparkles with Auchincloss's singular style and, like "East Side Story," reveals in precise, aphoristic prose "not only the textures of this world but also its elemental and evolving truths" ("New York Times").
Download or read book Persons of Consequence written by Louis Auchincloss and published by New York : Random House. This book was released on 1979 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Part sociology, part royal gossip, this glossy, readable book follows Victoria from her submissive childhood through her domineering reign. Auchincloss - a Wall Street lawyer and novelist (The Winthrop Covenant) - paints the Queen as less pompous than have previous biographers. But he is really more concerned with the courtly higher-ups around her and provides a non-Victorian, savvy lowdown. With its plentiful illustrations, this is a fascinating introduction to the era."--Amazon.com.
Download or read book Her Infinite Variety written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002-07-10 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of America's greatest men of letters, our sublime master of manners, comes his novel, Her Infinite Variety. Louis Auchincloss has been called "our most astute observer of moral paradox among the affluent" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.), and his fiction described as that which "has always examined what makes life worth living" (Washington Post Book World). Now he brings us the rollicking tale of an unforgettable woman of mid-twentieth century America: the devilish, forever plotting, yet wholly beguiling Clara Hoyt. A romantic early in life, Clara gets engaged--much to her mother's horror--to the lackluster Bobbie Lester. Soon after her Vassar graduation, however, Clara sees the error of her ways, spurns Bobbie, and slyly enthralls the well-bred and fabulously wealthy Trevor Hoyt, the first of her husbands. Soon she lands a job at a tony magazine, and so begins her wildly entertaining course to the inner sanctum of New York's aristocracy and into the boardrooms of the publishing world. In a world where women still had to wield the weapons of allure and charm, above all else, to secure positions of power, Clara, one of the last of her kind, succeeds marvelously. Auchincloss gives us, in Clara, an irresistible Cleopatra, lovely, wily, and mercurial. As Shakespeare wrote of that feminine creation, "Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety."
Download or read book The Lady of Situations written by Louis Auchincloss and published by HMH. This book was released on 1990-07-02 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times–bestselling author “picks up where Wharton and James left off, with [a] stylish, tasteful novel of manners” (Publishers Weekly). Natica Chauncey, the daughter of a financier ruined by the Great Depression, is determined to regain the social status she has lost. She relies on a kindly matron for her glancing acquaintance with the aristocracy of Long Island—but she is haunted by a yearning for more. Coming of age at a time when anything more than a modest show of ambition does not become a lady, she must seek her own fortune in the fortunes of others. And so, with little more than her wits and determination, she makes her way through the social shoals of New England prep schools, Hudson Valley estates, and New York drawing rooms. Natica has a gift for finding opportunity in improbable situations, even at the risk of scandal—and almost in spite of herself, she will emerge as an unlikely, and unforgettable, femme fatale.
Download or read book Louis Auchincloss written by Carol W. Gelderman and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fascinating life of Louis Auchincloss, Wall Street lawyer and master novelist. Based on interviews with Auchincloss and access to his private papers, Becoming a Writer takes readers inside some of America's least publicized yet most influential institutions and traces the development of a unique artist. 16-page photo insert.
Download or read book Theodore Roosevelt written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Times Books. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate portrait of the first president of the 20th century The American century opened with the election of that quintessentially American adventurer, Theodore Roosevelt. Louis Auchincloss's warm and knowing biography introduces us to the man behind the many myths of Theodore Roosevelt. From his early involvement in the politics of New York City and then New York State, we trace his celebrated military career and finally his ascent to the national political stage. Caricatured through history as the "bull moose," Roosevelt was in fact a man of extraordinary discipline whose refined and literate tastes actually helped spawn his fascination with the rough-and-ready worlds of war and wilderness. Bringing all his novelist's skills to the task, Auchincloss briskly recounts the significant contributions of Roosevelt's career and administration. This biography is as thorough as it is readable, as clear-eyed as it is touching and personal.
Download or read book I Come as a Thief written by Louis Auchincloss and published by HMH. This book was released on 1972-08-22 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel about a fortunate man tripped up by temptation, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Embezzler and The Partners. Tony Lowder is the able and good-looking grandson of an Irish immigrant who prospered as a contractor—and left behind a family whose station in life is on the decline. That is except for Tony, who has a promising future in politics. He has married into an old New York family, and his wife, Lee, cares for their two children and tolerates Tony’s continuing affair with wealthy Joan Conway, the mistress who dates back to his single days. But there is always pressure for more money, and it has become acute with a recent drop in the market. Suddenly, temptation emerges from a brokerage house under investigation, and some Mafia figures ready to pay for a slight change in timing that may rescue the firm. What follows shocks the city—and upsets the tightrope upon which Tony has been balancing . . . “Auchincloss is one of the most accomplished and distinctive writers this country has known.” —The Washington Post
Download or read book Exit Lady Masham written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1983-10-25 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this witty historical novel by the author of Watchfires, a poor woman joins the eighteenth-century court of Queen Anne and ends a war. On the Continent, John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, is laying waste to the lowlands in a bloody combat with Louis XIV. Meanwhile at the British court, Queen Anne, aging, ill, and surrounded by sycophants, is coping with the intrigues of those who wish to promote Marlborough’s dangerous ambitions. Chief among the plotters is his headstrong wife (and court favorite), Sarah Churchill. Into this tense and steamy environment comes young Abigail Hill, Sarah’s impoverished cousin. Sarah has arranged for her to be a maid to the Queen. But Abigail will discover that she has been marked by destiny for a special mission, which is nothing less than to bring to a halt a destructive world war. How she accomplishes this is the subject of this unusual but historically justified tale . . . The drama of court life and high politics, the growing antagonism between Sarah and Abigail, and an engaging cast of characters make for a lively narrative. And the portrait of Queen Anne is a tour de force that lends further depth to this vivid and engaging book. Perfect for fans of the Yorgos Lanthimos film, The Favourite, starring Olivia Coleman and Emma Stone.
Download or read book Last of the Old Guard written by Louis Auchincloss and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An insider's look at a secretive world behind the closed doors of a prominent New York law firm. Through interwoven tales of family members, clients, and such notables as Teddy Roosevelt and the Astors, also an intimate portrait of a poignant friendship between two men.
Download or read book The Embezzler written by Louis Auchincloss and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 1980-09-19 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Like Francis Prescott in The Rector of Justin, Guy Prime enjoyed the distinction of having become a legend in his lifetime. But in Guy's case, the legend is one of betrayal and infamy. For the scandal of his embezzlement brought down the delicately balanced structure of the Stock Exchange. The long-honored system of self-government by mutual trust among gentlemen came to an end with the default of one of its brightest stars. The story of Guy's fall is told by the three persons most intimately concerned: Guy himself, Rex Geer, his closest friend, and Angelica, his wife. We see him first through his own eyes — embittered, oddly proud of his peculiar distinction, and entirely unrepentant — the golden boy, the Wall Street manipulator, and finally the old man determined to justify himself to the grandchildren he will never see. Rex and Angelica in turn pick up the same threads of the story, but the threads change color subtly as they pass through different hands. In the end, the reader must decide for himself which is the real Guy Prime. Louis Auchincloss brings to the financial world the same authority and understanding he brought to the worlds of the law (Powers of Attorney), the private school (The Rector of Justin), and the old families of New York (Portrait in Brownstone). Virgilia Peterson, writing in the New York Times Book Review, called The Rector of Justin "not only a passionately interesting, but a spiritually important study of the American character of, and for our time." Her words hold true for The Embezzler.
Download or read book The Indifferent Children written by Louis Auchincloss and published by . This book was released on 1964 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Witty and ironic picture of New York society and society people in rear-eschelon desk jobs in the Canal Zone and at sea. Beverly Stregelinus, a young, upper-class New Yorker, is a charming young man, but aware of his ingratiating deficiencies. At the eve of World War II, his days are filled with charity and committee work after losing hisart gallery job. Pearl Harbor shatters all this and catapults him into a desk job in the Canal Zone as a lieutenant. Under these strange and bewildering circumstances, a court-martial scandal entangles Beverly and his Navy friends and marks the beginning of the real education of Beverly Stregelinus.
