Louis Auchincloss Books In Order

Novels

  1. The Indifferent Children (1947)
  2. Sybil (1952)
  3. Law for the Lion (1953)
  4. The Great World and Timothy Colt (1957)
  5. The Rector of Justin (1960)
  6. Watchfires (1960)
  7. Portrait in Brownstone (1962)
  8. The Embezzler (1966)
  9. World of Profit (1969)
  10. I Come As a Thief (1972)
  11. The Book Class (1974)
  12. The Dark Lady (1977)
  13. The Country Cousin (1978)
  14. The House of the Prophet (1980)
  15. The Cat and the King (1981)
  16. Exit Lady Masham (1983)
  17. Honorable Men (1985)
  18. Diary of a Yuppie (1986)
  19. The Golden Calves (1988)
  20. Fellow Passengers (1988)
  21. Lady of Situations (1990)
  22. The Education of Oscar Fairfax (1995)
  23. Her Infinite Variety (2000)
  24. The Scarlet Letters (2003)
  25. East Side Story (2004)
  26. The Headmaster’s Dilemma (2007)
  27. Last of the Old Guard (2008)

Omnibus

  1. Family Fortunes (1993)

Collections

  1. The Injustice Collectors (1951)
  2. The Romantic Egotists (1954)
  3. Powers of Attorney (1963)
  4. Tales of Manhattan (1967)
  5. Second Chance (1970)
  6. The Partners (1974)
  7. The Winthrop Covenant (1976)
  8. Narcissa and Other Fables (1983)
  9. Skinny Island (1987)
  10. False Gods (1992)
  11. Three Lives (1993)
  12. Tales of Yesteryear (1994)
  13. The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (1994)
  14. The Atonement (1997)
  15. The Anniversary (1999)
  16. Manhattan Monologues (2002)
  17. The Young Apollo (2006)
  18. The Friend of Women (2007)

Anthologies edited

  1. Fables of Wit and Elegance (1972)

Non fiction

  1. Edith Wharton (1961)
  2. Reflections of a Jacobite (1961)
  3. Ellen Glasgow (1964)
  4. Pioneers and Caretakers (1965)
  5. Motiveless Malignity (1970)
  6. Henry Adams (1971)
  7. Richelieu (1972)
  8. Reading Henry James (1975)
  9. A Writer’s Capital (1979)
  10. Persons of Consequence (1979)
  11. Life, Law and Letters (1979)
  12. Maverick in Mauve (1983)
  13. False Dawn (1984)
  14. The Vanderbilt Era (1989)
  15. The Hone and Strong Diaries of Old Manhattan (1989)
  16. J.P. Morgan (1990)
  17. Love Without Wings (1991)
  18. The Style’s the Man (1994)
  19. Newport Remembered (1994)
  20. La Gloire (1996)
  21. The Man Behind the Book (1996)
  22. Woodrow Wilson (2000)
  23. Theodore Roosevelt (2002)
  24. Forging a New Nation: 1765-1790 (2002)
  25. Hawthorne Revisited (2004)
  26. Writers and Personality (2005)
  27. Woodrow Wilson: A Life (2009)
  28. A Voice from Old New York (2010)

Novels Book Covers

Omnibus Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Anthologies edited Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Louis Auchincloss Books Overview

The Great World and Timothy Colt

Like a latter day Olympus, the large Manhattan law firm of Sheffield, Knox & Dale is so rich and influential, so full of good grey heads, that it is more like a seat of government than a place of business. To Timothy Colt, law is the very essence of America’s eminence, and it is this belief that sustains him and makes him the tirelessly dedicated young lawyer that he is. Likewise, it is his wife’s belief in Timothy that allows her to tolerate his grinding hours at the office and what might be regarded in another profession as neglect of his family. But as Timothy rises in the firm, he begins to see the conflict between ethics and ambition that lies at the very heart of Sheffield, Knox & Dale, and his disillusionment begins.

The Rector of Justin

Regarded as one of Louis Auchincloss’s most accomplished novels, The Rector of Justin centers on Frank Prescott, the founder of an exclusive school for boys. Eighty years of his life unfold through the observations of six narrators, each with a unique perspective on the man, his motivations, and the roots of his triumphs and failings.

The Embezzler

The Embezzler, first written in 1966, uses conflicting narrative voices and viewpoints to illuminate the fabled dimensions of American economic history as it was then understood. Inspired by the documented facts of the Wall Street fraud case that led the United States government to take control of the American stock market, Auchincloss then describes the case and its main players with credibility and skill, reinventing the facts of this historical event with skill. Given the financial crisis of 2008, and similar fraudulent schemes that have been exposed since, this is must reading. The Embezzler tells the life story of Guy Prime, who was born into wealth, enjoyed his youth, and eventually ended up in prison after he tried to secure loans against money he did not have and his embezzlements were revealed. Whatever the reasons for his gradual lapse into crime and his eventual disgrace, Guy Prime remains one of Louis Auchincloss’s most engaging characters. Guy s gravest flaw appears not to be greed but rather a chronic tendency to misread human character. The story itself is told from three different viewpoints and narrators. Auchincloss s multi narrator technique allows the reader to have a vivid sense of what transpired. This is classic Auchincloss, on a subject that illumines current events.

Her Infinite Variety

From one of America’s greatest men of letters, our sublime master of manners, comes his long awaited new novel, Her Infinite Variety. Louis Auchincloss has been called ‘our most astute observer of moral paradox among the affluent’ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 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.’

The Scarlet Letters

With such classic works as The Rector of Justin and, more recently, Manhattan Monologues, Louis Auchincloss has long established himself as one of our ‘most useful and intelligent writers’ New York Observer. Now this American master offers his cleverest novel yet: a triumphant modern twist on the legendary Hawthorne tale, in which secrets, sin, and suspense collide among the fabulously rich. The year is 1953, and the coastal village of Glenville, on the opulent north shore of Long Island, is shaken by scandal. Ambrose Vollard, the managing partner of a prestigious Wall Street law firm, gets word of an alleged affair in his family. Most astonishing, the adulterer is Rodman Jessup, Vollard’s son in law, junior partner, and most likely successor. Until now Jessup has been admired for his impeccable morals and high ideals, so what could explain his affair with a woman of fading charms? All is on the line for Jessup, who threatens to upset Glenville’s carefully calibrated social order. As each family member learns of the affair, the story reveals layer upon layer of abiding loyalties and shameless double crossing. Wise, rich, and exuberantly entertaining, The Scarlet Letters posts a seductive missive to anyone ever tempted by power, wealth, or passion.

East Side Story

‘Louis Auchincloss has an enveloping story to tell and a perfect, understated knowledge of those who inhabit it,’ said the New York Times of The Scarlet Letters. The same can be said of Auchincloss’s new novel, a tour de force that charts the rise of one uncommon family in America’s grand city. How did the families who live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side get to where they are today? As much a penetrating social history as it is engaging fiction, East Side Story tells of the Carnochans, a family whose Scottish forebears establish themselves in New York’s textile business during the Civil War. From there they quickly move on to seize prominent positions in the country’s top schools and Manhattan’s elite firms. As the novel unfolds, family members across the generations recount their stories, illuminating lives steeped in both good fortune and moral jeopardy. From women who outsmart their foolish husbands, to ambitious lawyers who protect the Carnochan name, to the family’s artists and writers, all weigh the question that infuses so much of Auchincloss’s fiction: what makes for a meaningful life in a family that has so much? In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews hails Auchincloss for being ‘once again the master of his craft.’ East Side Story is both a loving and wicked look at New York’s own as only this sublime master of manners can provide.

The Headmaster’s Dilemma

In The Headmaster’s Dilemma, Louis Auchincloss revisits the prep school world of his most famous novel. That book, The Rector of Justin, published in 1964, took the form of a fictional biography, giving the reader the full life story of a much beloved and revered, if also feared, headmaster of an exclusive New England prep school. In The Headmaster s Dilemma, we see up close what happens when a school s ideals and founding principles collide with the exigencies of change. The Headmaster s Dilemma is the story of Michael Sayre, the handsome, avant garde headmaster of Averhill, the great New England prep school as he is faced with a school administrator s worst nightmare: a lawsuit brought by fervent parents in response to an incident involving their son and an upperclassman. To make matters worse, Michael is losing support from both the board of trustees led by the conniving Donald Spencer and senior faculty members. With the help of his supportive wife, Michael attempts to right these wrongs, while keeping Averhill s best interests in mind.

Last of the Old Guard

The American master Louis Auchincloss offers an intimate look behind the closed doors of a prominent New York law firm. Nearing the end of his days, Adrian Suydam, half the partnership of the law firm of Suydam & Saunders, reflects on his lifelong friendship and business relationship with Ernest Saunders, a tragic and complicated man incapable of properly loving anyone. In this perceptive novel, set against the backdrop of old New York, Auchincloss exposes the temptations and vicissitudes that thrust his characters toward unforeseen fates. Drawing on his career as a wills and trusts attorney, Auchincloss elegantly brings to life a stratum of society that few have seen. Through interwoven tales of family members, clients, and such notables as Teddy Roosevelt and the Astors, readers get an insider’s look at a secretive world. Touching, comical, and erudite, Last of the Old Guard is both a revealing history of a high profile law firm and an intimate portrait of a poignant friendship between two men.

Family Fortunes

Three distinguished novels from a master of American fiction The Rector of Justin, The House of Five Talents, and Portrait in Brownstone illustrate the author’s knowledge of high society and his attention to detail.

The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss

A collection of the author’s most noted short works includes ”The Romantic Egoists,” ”Skinny Island,” and ”Tales of Yesteryear,” and features the author’s non traditional style of the passage of time.

Manhattan Monologues

He is our sublime master of manners, our ‘most astute observer of moral paradox among the affluent’ Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and ‘one of the essential American writers’ Kirkus. Now, in his fifty seventh book, Louis Auchincloss delivers a brilliant collection of ten new, previously unpublished, stories; once again, he unfailingly ‘voices truths with elegant precision’ Publishers Weekly. Manhattan Monologues charts a colorful New York century through a series of personal accounts from the rarefied circle that fills Auchincloss’s best short fiction. Here are characters who confidently finesse their way through society’s uppermost tiers and yet are just as easily undone by the smallest upset in a day. Like all of Auchincloss’s richest creations, they bump up against their consciences, with often surprising results. What, for instance, is a woman to do when she must choose between true love and high society when making a marriage? How can a man stay true to himself, his family, and his country when it goes to war? How can a determined marriage broker salvage matters when the young man she has so painstakingly steered toward a love match becomes charmed by another woman? These tales, and many more, fashion a glamorous, yet all too human, societal portrait from the aristocratic loyalties of the early twentieth century to the complicated twists of modern day mergers and acquisitions. Manhattan Monologues is Louis Auchincloss at his most clever, his most discerning, his best.

The Young Apollo

An evocative and elegant collection of new stories from an American master. Bringing together twelve previously unpublished pieces, The Young Apollo and Other Stories sparkles with Auchincloss’s singular style, and, like East Side Story, his most recent book, reveals in precise, aphoristic prose ‘not only the textures of this world but also its elemental and evolving truths’ New York Times. From Edwardian garden parties to the Manhattan demimonde of the 1970s, Auchincloss travels with economical grace and agility in this collection, which illuminates the moral ambiguities, both personal and professional, of New York’s moneyed class. A loving chronicle of a waning world, this new collection is nonetheless an acute and gimlet eyed portrait that refuses to shy away from its characters’ less than savory ambitions and desires. In the title story, an older man eulogizes his young friend, the golden Lionel Manning muse to the artists he gathered round himself and preserved forever in memory as the beautiful thirty one year old man he was at death only to reveal that despite Lionel s burgeoning reputation as a poet, he could inspire genius but not produce it. The Young Apollo and Other Stories crystallizes a world now gone but forever fixed in our romantic imaginations, uncovering its flaws and all too human foibles, as well as its considerable charms.

The Friend of Women

The Los Angeles Times has lauded Louis Auchincloss as ‘a novelist committed to examining the complicated layers of character, psychology, and society.’ In The Friend of Women, that dedication shines on every page in the singular, epigrammatic style of an American master. The mysteries of character are at the heart of these six previously unpublished pieces. In the title story, a teacher at a private girls’ school ruminates on a long career, wondering if he was right to encourage his students to find a life less constrained than the conventional one prescribed to them or if he cruelly raised unrealistic expectations. In ‘The Country Cousin’ a delightful one act play a wealthy woman’s dependent niece unwittingly serves as the vehicle that reveals her rich relatives’ self involvement. Ranging from a boyhood friendship tested by the fabrications of the McCarthy era to an Episcopal priest tormented by an autocratic headmaster, Auchincloss’s fiction illuminates the complications that ensue when our perceptions of other people’s character as well as our own are upended.

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton American Writers 12 was first published in 1961. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

Persons of Consequence

This is a first american edition. The dust cover on this book is torn on the back slightly. The pages look nice. Shop from thousands of books in our Amazon store. St. Vincent DePaul is a non profit charity that has a mission to help any person in need. The funds we receive are used exclusively to further this mission. The society of St. Vincent DePaul has been offering aid to those in need for 176 years, and was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Award. The total amount of assistance provided in our area in 2007 is $659,689. We have served 64541 people in Snohomish county alone in 2009. We offer the best in customer service and back every sale with that promise! Please help support our efforts with your purchase. We have sold and shipped several hundred books and always take care of our customers. Our objective is to ship fast and satisfy every customer who visits our store. Please help us establish a reputation that assures others of our guarantee of satisfaction. If you have a title for which you have been looking, email us with the request and we will get back to you. Thank You!

La Gloire

In this collection of essays, Auchincloss considers the text of 17th-century French dramatists, Corneille and Racine. He offers observations about classic French tragedy, passion, self-sacrifice, self-aggrandizement, and civic and military glory.

The Man Behind the Book

In a collection of literary essays, the prolific writer explores the life and work of twenty three diverse, talented authors, ranging from such masters as Henry James to such lesser known novelists as Ivy Compton Burnett and Dumas fils.

Woodrow Wilson

One of our most esteemed writers and critics paints a deeply insightful portrait of the greatest political mastermind of a century Our twenty eighth president was, says Louis Auchincloss, ‘the greatest idealist who ever occupied the White House.’ And who better than Auchincloss, with his penchant for quirky personalities and fascination with fin de sicle society, to explore this complex persona? Woodrow Wilson sheds new light on Wilson’s upbringing and career, from the grim determination that enabled him to overcome dyslexia to the skillful dance of isolationism and intervention in World War I to the intransigence that despite his most cherished vision caused the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations. Here, from the dynamic figure whose ringing speeches hypnotized vast crowds to the gentle voice reading poetry aloud and the comic star of family skits and charades to the rising academic and president of Princeton who made the giant leap into politics are all the triumphs and final tragic irony of this flawed apostle of world peace.

Theodore Roosevelt

An intimate portrait of the first president of the 20th centuryThe 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.

Hawthorne Revisited

Two hundred years after his birth, Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of America’s most important and influential writers. To celebrate that bicentennial, this new collection gathers essays by novelists, critics, historians, and biographers that explore aspects of Hawthorne’s life and work. It is published by the Lenox Library in Lenox, Massachusetts, the Berkshire town where Hawthorne spent two productive years and where he formed his friendship with Herman Melville. The writers and subjects here range from Louis Auchincloss and Elizabeth Hardwick on The Scarlet Letter to Paul Auster on Hawthorne’s journals and what they reveal about his family life; from Harrison Hayford’s previously unpublished exploration of Hawthorne’s influence on Melville to Carol Gilligan’s experiences adapting Hawthorne’s work for the stage; from Wendell Garrett’s evocation of nineteenth century Salem to a sample of Hawthorne’s own journalism ‘Chiefly About War Matters by a Peaceable Man,’ written for The Atlantic Monthly in 1862. Also in these essays, curators of Hawthorne historical sites explore the influence of physical environment on the writer; biographer Brenda Wineapple examines the author’s political views, including his controversial disdain of abolitionists; journalist and novelist Tom Wicker offers an appraisal of Hawthorne’s skills as a war correspondent; and journalist Neil Hickey considers the author’s ongoing cultural influence through film and television adaptations of his work. The heavily illustrated volume will also feature a range of visual materials, including original, full page silhouettes in a nineteenth century style by Scherenschnitte papercutting artist Pamela Dalton.

Writers and Personality

In this concise but pointed volume of ruminations on writers, literary icon Louis Auchincloss considers the inextricable link between a writer’s personality and the fiction he or she creates. The acclaimed novelist examines the works of two dozen writers from his canon of personal favorites, ranging from the seventeenth century s Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine to the twentieth century s E. M. Forster and Ernest Hemingway. Auchincloss suggests that great art flows from the expression of a writer s unique personality and that, in keeping with this, the stifling of the personal self, as in the case of Anne Bront , may forestall consummate artistic achievement. Taking an expansive approach to the notion of personality, Auchincloss provides succint as*sessments of the lives, temperaments, obsessions, and interests of his subjects and explores how their personalities materialize in the fiction they produce. In lively prose, Auchincloss s observations offer an expanded appreciation of these vaunted writers and of the acuity that has earned the author his dedicated following. The featured writers are Henry Adams, Anne Bront , Charlotte Bront , Emily Bront , Willa Cather, Pierre Corneille, Theodore Dreiser, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert, E. M. Forster, Anatole France, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, John P. Marquand, George Meredith, Prosper Merim e, Marcel Proust, Jean Racine, William Makepeace Thackeray, Anthony Trollope, and Edith Wharton.

Woodrow Wilson: A Life

A portrait of a century’s greatest political mastermind Our tw ent y eighth president was, says Louis Auchincloss, ‘the greatest idealist who ever occupied the White House.’ Now, in Woodrow Wilson, Auchincloss sheds new light on Wilson’s upbringing and career, from the grim determination that enabled him to overcome dyslexia to the skillful dance of isolationism and intervention in World War I to the intransigence that despite his most cherished vision caused the Senate’s rejection of the League of Nations. From the dynamic figure whose ringing speeches hypnotized vast crowds, to the gentle voice reading poetry to his children, Auchincloss presents all the triumphs and the final tragic irony of this flawed apostle of world peace.

A Voice from Old New York

At the time of his death, Louis Auchincloss enemy of bores, self pity, and gossip less than fresh had just finished taking on a subject he had long avoided: himself. His memoir confirms that, despite the spark of his fiction, Auchincloss himself was the most entertaining character he has created. No traitor to his class but occasionally its critic, he returns us to his Society which was, he maintains, less interesting than its members admitted. You may differ as he unfurls his life with dignity, summoning his family particularly his father who suffered from depression and forgave him for hating sports and intimates. Brooke Astor and her circle are here, along with glimpses of Jacqueline Onassis. Most memorable, though, is his way with those outside the salon: the cranky maid; the maiden aunt, perpetually out of place; the less than well born boy who threw himself from a window over a woman and a man. Here is Auchincloss, an American master, being Auchincloss, a rare eye, a generous and lively spirit to the end.

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