Best Selling Books by Louis Auchincloss

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

A “novel of power and hypocrisy in upper-class New York” that follows the rise of one prominent family, generation after generation (The New Yorker). How did the families who live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side get to where they are today? This engaging saga by a New York Times–bestselling author charts the rise of an uncommon family in America’s grandest city. East Side Story tells of the Carnochan family whose Scottish forebears established themselves in New York’s textile business during the Civil War. From there they quickly moved on to seize prominent positions in the country’s top schools and Manhattan’s elite firms. As the novel unfolds, Carnochans across generations recount stories about their 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 Louis Auchincloss’s fiction: What makes for a meaningful life in a family that has so much? “Some writers inform, some instruct, and some tell how rewarding good prose can be,” John Kenneth Galbraith once observed. “Louis Auchincloss does all three.” In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews called East Side Story “a rich chronicle . . . that succeeds in humanizing a rare and much-maligned species of Americans for those who don’t come across them very much.” Auchincloss’s superb novel is both a loving and wicked look at New York’s Yankee aristocracy as only this sublime master of manners can provide.

Set in the New York Stock Exchange world of love, adultery, high finance, and betrayal, presents a character study of a Wall Street man who embezzles money during the Depression.

This New York Times–bestselling author’s story collection “displays consistent excellence in observing the spheres of art, law, money and society” (Publishers Weekly). Whether set in the world of Wall Street, the nineteenth-century Virginia aristocracy, or a boys’ school in New England, the short stories of Louis Auchincloss reveal a remarkable insight into the things that drive us and make us human. In this volume, the author collects a wide range of his finest work, taking us on a journey through decades of outstanding short fiction. “Spanning more than 40 years, this collection attests to Auchincloss’s durable talents: flawless prose, keen social observation, and a refined moral sensibility. The compromises between society and the individual, art and commerce, ego and restraint all figure into his finest fictions. Arranged chronologically, the 19 selections together suggest the author’s profound sense of American history, with all of its political and social eruptions. He seems to have emerged as a writer fully formed, since the earliest pieces here prove as supple and graceful as his most recent. . . . Auchincloss schools us in all the social differences we’re taught don’t exist. . . . Further proof, if any is needed, that Auchincloss ranks among the best in American literature.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[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

A New York Times–bestselling novel of love, money, and ambition among the employees of a white-shoe law firm. From a renowned chronicler of American high society, this is a novel set in the small but distinguished New York law firm of Shepard, Putney & Cox in the early 1970s. The son of a rich mother and a socially ambitious father, Beekman “Beeky” Ehninger makes a successful career for himself in the narrow upper echelons of his profession. For years, he has quietly guided his firm through numerous periods of transition—not to mention marital strife, forgery, and fraud. But as times have changed, Beeky and his colleagues must decide whether to join forces with a new and different breed—tough, but undeniably successful. The Partners is a masterful characterization of moral men navigating an amoral world, of lawyers, their families, and the rich and powerful people they serve. “Vintage Auchincloss—sensitive, ironic, sympathetic, affecting. Auchincloss is particularly good with the interior reality of seemingly minor conflicts; he also shows, over and over again, that seemingly large and dramatic conflicts are often not the important ones.” —New York magazine

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."

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

From a New York Times–bestselling author: A novel about a member of the Greatest Generation wrestling with moral choices over the next generation’s war in Vietnam. Chip Benedict appeared to have the best of everything: wealth, education, good looks, charm, and intelligence. Shortly before entering law school, he married Alida, a pale beauty who also had the cunning and talent to become the debutante of the year, escaping the progressively threadbare world of tarnished elegance and unpaid bills to which she was born. Alida’s life continued in a storybook fashion with her marriage to Chip, a seemingly perfect and certainly honorable man. Called to serve in World War II, he returned a hero, decorated for bravery at the Normandy landing. Following in his father’s footsteps, he became chairman of the board of the prestigious Benedict Glass Company founded by his grandfather. And yet, with all of his gifts, Chip is haunted by dark guilt that drives him to excel, conform, and embrace a righteousness that he fails to perceive as hypocrisy. In business he becomes the perfect corporate executive, lauded in Fortune and Forbes. He serves his community, supports the arts, and patriotically honors his government. But when it comes to choosing sides on the issue of Vietnam, he will make a decision that casts aside the deepest ties and loyalties of his life. “Through a series of flashbacks the narrators come to realize how outside events have influenced their lives. Auchincloss uses their story to show us the frailties of human nature when confronted with politics and morality. This psychological novel is perceptive, elegantly spare, and well crafted.” —Library Journal

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

Tales that take you behind the scenes of a powerful New York law firm, from the New York Times–bestselling author of The Partners. Ambition, jealousy, desire, hatred, deceit—they’re all there inside the Wall Street law offices of Tower, Tilney & Webb, the setting for these interwoven stories set in the 1960s from Louis Auchincloss, who practiced law while also writing acclaimed and bestselling fiction. Senior partner Clitus Tilney is not about to let a detestable, hard-drinking partner make a mockery of all he’s worked for. Harry Reilley is a clerk who pines for Tilney’s daughter. Jake Platt is an associate willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, including setting a rival up for failure. Rutherford Tower struggles with the fact that he owes his position with the firm to nepotism and not hard work. And then there’s Mrs. Abercrombie, who’s waiting for her sixty-fifth birthday, when she plans to retire—and get her revenge. These twelve linked stories capture the struggles, rivalries, victories, disappointments, and compromises in the day-to-day lives of lawyers, and a portrait of professional men and women in mid-century New York.

The House of the Prophet is Louis Auchincloss''s searching novel of Felix Leitner, one of the most influential men of his time. Political philosopher, columnist, adviser to American presidents, Leitner will doubtless bring to many readers'' minds the late Walter Lippmann, portrayed in the fine biography by Ronald Steel. Indeed, in his new introduction, Auchincloss makes plain that "the idea of writing a novel inspired by, though by no means based upon, the life of Walter Lippmann was unlike any fictional idea that I have had before or since." He candidly adds, "I was always perfectly aware the Felix Leitner, the protagonist of The House of the Prophet, would be instantly related to Walter Lippmann, and I had no objection to this." Whether considered on its own merits or as a major statement on Lippmann, this volume deserves close scrutiny.

In this novel by the author of Three Lives, a blue blood New York lawyer recounts his life through stories of people he has encountered along the way. Linking three generations of a Wall Street law firm, The Education of Oscar Fairfax provides a revealing portrait of the American upper classes throughout the twentieth century. The story opens in 1908, as St. Luke’s Cathedral rises stone by stone on lower Broadway, and young Oscar learns a lesson in compromise from his grandfather, the bishop. Oscar’s schooling continues at St. Augustine’s, where he sees a schoolmaster’s high ideals exposed as fantasy, and at Yale, where Oscar’s literary ambitions are tempered by a brilliant but ruthless classmate who proves that “the juiciest tidbit for many a writer is the hand that fed him.” As an adult, Oscar is one who profoundly affects others, whether he is subtly influencing a Supreme Court justice during the New Deal era, acting as mentor to a talented local boy in a Maine resort town, or probing the ethical dilemma that tempts his own son to resign from the family firm. “As Auchincloss charts his hero’s education, he considers human nature in all its arenas, from religion to law, love, war, and art.” —Booklist “Much satisfaction is generated as Auchincloss, in his 38th book of fiction, reliably affirms his craft, depicting the maturation of character through time.” —Publishers Weekly “Auchincloss . . . tells the saga of the American Century as only he knows how, through a fictional memoir by someone well poised to witness the high social dimension of political events . . . . [A] perfect character study, all the more profound for its modesty and measure.” —Kirkus Reviews

"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.

Retrace la trajectoire privée et publique du vingt-huitième président des Etats-Unis.

A cat may look at a king, says an old proverb. The king is the Sun King, Louis XIV of France, whose fabled court at Versailles was the wonder of Europe; the cat is the watchful chronicler, Louis de Rouvroy, second duc de Saint-Simon, author of the famous Memoirs which are the definitive record of Louis’ reign. Auchincloss has conceived his novel as an extension of the Memoirs, in which Saint-Simon reveals his own story—as well as a great deal about the private lives of the great and near-great that did not find its way into the published record. With his inimitable gift for characterization, Auchincloss portrays Saint-Simon, the meticulous, proud aristocrat of the old school who is at once fascinated and threatened by the powerful centralized monarchy Louis is building and by the king’s plot to bolster his position by marrying off his illegitimate children to princes of the blood. Elegant, crisp, and abounding in authentic detail, The Cat and the King shows us the factions, liaisons, intrigues and dalliances that made up daily life at Versailles as they might have been seen from Saint-Simon’s highly critical perspective. Auchincloss imagines the dominant figures of this greatest period in French history—the aging Louis; his pious morganatic spouse, Madame de Maintenon; Monsieur, the king’s homosexual brother; the great warrior and ladies’ man Conti; and many others—as wholly believable individuals with peculiar tics and foibles of their own; but none is stranger, more fascinating, or more believable than Saint-Simon himself. A remarkable portrait of a quintessential man of his time, a discerning study of the use and abuse of power, and an utterly convincing recreation of a turbulent age that bears no small resemblance to our own, The Cat and the King is a many-faceted jewel that represents a new dimension of achievement in Louis Auchincloss’ distinguished career as a novelist.

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").

A prominent lawyer in 1940s New York investigates the mystery of his partner’s life and death in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author. 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, Louis Auchincloss exposes the temptations and vicissitudes that thrust his characters toward unforeseen fates. Drawing on his own career as an attorney, Auchincloss “effortlessly conjures a bygone world of privilege” and elegantly brings to life a lost era (Publishers Weekly). 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 a revealing portrait of both a high-profile law firm and a poignant friendship between two men—from an author whose works “have rightfully earned him a literary place alongside Edith Wharton and Henry James. His old-fashioned sensibility remains charming, even refreshing in an era of literati hipsters” (Los Angeles Times).

Twelve stories contemplating destiny and detailing the life of Manhattan’s upper class over the course of one hundred years, from the author of Honorable Men. It’s only twelve miles long and two miles wide, but it has more money for its area, more history packed into its relatively brief settlement, and more emotional and intellectual energy coursing through its streets than any other place on earth. Manhattan is the setting for all of Louis Auchincloss’s fiction, and it is the stage on which those New Yorkers whose roots go down to its bedrock play out the drama of their lives. From the turn of the century to our present urban follies, these stories follow the fortunes of the socially secure and powerful as they try to cope with the changes shaped by the momentous events and growing anxieties of recent decades. Taken together, the tales weave a larger pattern of human strengths and foibles that bemuses the mind and touches the heart. The elegant prose, crystalline dialogue, immense insight into the mores, preoccupations, and afflictions of the rich, and the connoisseur’s sense of both art and life that are characteristic of Auchincloss—all are here, but with a depth of passion and irony exceeding anything he has accomplished in the past. Praise for Skinny Island “Many of Auchincloss’ wealthy and Waspy protagonists, caught in such fine conflict, find it difficult to defend their dwindling kind or, conversely, to rebel against their confining values . . . . With this, his 40th book, Auchincloss has yet to exhaust his art, or his loyal readers.” —Kirkuks Reviews

Short fiction examining the mysteries of human character, from a New York Times–bestselling author acclaimed as “among the best in American literature” (Kirkus Reviews). 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, Louis Auchincloss’s fiction illuminates the complications that ensue when our perceptions of other people’s natures—as well as our own—are upended. Praised by the Los Angeles Times as a writer “committed to examining the complicated layers of character, psychology, and society,” Louis Auchincloss presents a treasure trove of short fiction that showcases both his insight and his literary talent.

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.

The author of Exit Lady Masham explores the lives of twelve members of a high society ladies’ book club in New York over the course of sixty years. “If I have a bias it is in my suspicion that women are intellectually and intuitively superior to men,” writes Christopher Gates, the narrator of this book. “But,” he adds, “I certainly never thought they were “nicer.” And I very much doubt that anyone could think so who was raised, as I was, in a society in which the female had so many more privileges than the male.” Thus, he describes the twelve women who—as debutantes— instituted his mother’s “book class” in 1908 and met every month for over sixty years to discuss a selected title, old or new. During their lifetimes, these women did not have any real political or economic clout comparable to that of the men of their day. Only Adeline Bloodgood had ever held a regular job, and only Polly Travers, as a State Assemblywoman, ever played a formal role in politics. For Georgia Bristed, “the hostess had largely consumed the woman,” and Leila Lee was “a beauty in a day when simply being beautiful was considered an adequate occupation.” Although most of them were surrounded by a staff of servants and had no discernible responsibilities, these women still lived with serious intent backed by a considerable and undeniable power that in no way derived from “the snares and lures of womanly wiles.” Within the protected discipline of their surroundings, their lives were filled with drama and challenge—moments of passion, of betrayal and loyalty, of sweet revenge and joyless conquest, of irony and illumination . . .

An “entertaining and occasionally even moving” personal recollection by the lawyer, historian, and renowned chronicler of old-money WASP society (The Boston Globe). At the time of his death, Louis Auchincloss—enemy of bores, self-pity, and stale gossip—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 ever created. No traitor to his class, but occasionally its critic, Auchincloss returns to his insular society, which he maintains was less interesting than its members admitted—and unfurls his life with dignity, summoning 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 Auchincloss’s 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. Above all, here is what it was like to be Auchincloss, an American master, a New York Times–bestselling novelist, and a rare, generous, lively spirit to the end. “[Auchincloss] concentrates on bringing back to life—literary alchemy, after all—the people who loved him: his mother, father, aunts, uncles, school friends and colleagues. He understands how lucky he was to have them, and ‘A Voice From Old New York’ is his thank-you note.” —The New York Times

Spanning three centuries, these nine stories share the conflicts of a wealthy New England family while portraying the rise and fall of the Puritan ethic. The Winthrop Heritage begins in the stern confines of the Massachusetts Bay Colony—Governor John Winthrop’s covenant with God versus Anne Hutchinson’s compulsion to martyrdom. The burden of conscience falls in varying ways to the Governor’s descendants. To his grandson, a judge in the Salem witch trials, it means dying in torment. To Rebecca Bayard, wife of a Hudson Valley patroon, it becomes an obsessive sense of duty leading to ironic consequences. It persuades an American diplomat, negotiating in Paris with the canny Talleyrand, to reject the easy gain of private power. On the eve of the Civil War, Winthrop Ward, pillar of rectitude in New York society, finds himself playing God at the price of his own humanity. At the century’s turn, there is Adam Winthrop, wealthy clubman and cultural arbiter, and his protégée Ada Guest—the passionate bluestocking novelist who opts to escape his stifling patronage. In a New England boarding school in the 1920s, the headmaster’s bedeviled Winthrop soul becomes a strange challenge to the chaplain. On the current scene, young and fashionable Natica Seligmann yearns for salvation from an empty life. And finally, there is John Winthrop Gardiner, staunch State Department hawk, whose son is an Army deserter—and whose alcoholic ex-wife perceives only too clearly the latter-day perversions of the Puritan spirit. A compassionate, searching, and wholly arresting view of a moral strain that, for better or worse, has marked our national character, The Winthrop Covenant is one of Louis Auchincloss’ highest fictional achievements.

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.

The author of False Gods and winner of the National Medal of Arts offers eight stories looking into the lives of the wealthy—but troubled—elite. Set in various decades throughout twentieth century, this entertaining short story collection reveals the inner lives of America’s upper classes in the polished, elegant prose that is Louis Auchincloss’s signature. The intricate balance of power in a marriage, the artist’s hunger for inspiration, the responsibilities of privileged youth on the eve of war—Auchincloss casts a knowing yet sympathetic eye on such dilemmas as they play themselves out in the salons, clubs, boarding schools, Park Avenue drawing rooms, and summer hideaways of the moneyed classes. In “The Man of Good Will,” an aging Seth Middletown finds himself unable to save a beloved grandson torn apart by the sixties — a boy carefully protected from a family secret. Dick and Joyce Emmons, in “The Lotos Eaters,” are surprised to find their new marriage subtly undermined by their own enchanted existence on a paradisal Florida island. A theatrical grande dame and an admiring young actor are “Priestess and Acolyte” —until they realize that the passions that rule them are irreconcilable. Evident on every page of the eight stories contained here are Auchincloss’s superb ear for dialogue and his ability to suggest what lies beneath the surface of human relationships. Tales of Yesteryear will give Auchincloss’s loyal readers cause to rejoice, and newcomers a delightful introduction to one of America''s most distinguished authors. Praise for Tales of Yesteryear “His word is as graceful and insightful as it’s ever been. These eight stories, with their familiar social types and elegant settings, are vintage Auchincloss: moral tales that resonate with the history of our times, albeit from the top down . . . . Auchincloss belongs among the masters of American short fiction, as this volume demonstrates.” —Kirkus Reviews “Auchincloss’s keen social observation, pitch-perfect dialogue and gift for dramatic confrontation are as effective as ever.” —Publishers Weekly

Twenty-three biographical essays on writers admired by the National Medal of Arts–winning author of The Education of Oscar Fairfax. For Louis Auchincloss, life and letters are not two things but one. It therefore comes as no surprise that when he writes about writers, their lives are considered as closely as their works. He takes what today is a refreshingly unpopular position: that the artist and his art cannot be teased apart, that biography of criticism and criticism biography. For Mr. Auchincloss, it all boils down to that maxim of Buffon’s: “the style’s the man,” the man behind the book. The twenty-three writers discussed here are a mixed lot—English, American, and French; novelists, poets, and playwrights; Jacobeans, Victorians, and moderns—yet each has meant a great deal to Mr. Auchincloss as a reader and a writer. Some of them are classics, and familiar Auchincloss subjects: Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry James, Ivy Compton-Burnett. Others, among them Prosper Merimee, Harold Frederic, and Amy Lowell, were famous once but are now obscure. In their cases it is Mr. Auchincloss’s self-described task “to explore the reasons for their fall from grace,” reasons that prove to be unfailingly personal as well as artistic. But as Mr. Auchincloss would rather praise and share than damn and dismiss, it is also his task “to seek the portions of their work that may still merit attention.” Alfred Kazin once noted that Mr. Auchincloss’s essays are marked by “perfect literary grace and wit.” These qualities have never been so evident as in this volume, an informal study of some of the author''s favorite books and the fascinating artists behind them.

"Three Lives, more radically than any other work of the time* in English, brought the language back to life. Not the life of the peasantry or the emotions or the proletariat but life as it was lived by everybody living in the century, the average or normal life as the naturalists had seen it. Gertrude Stein in this work tried to coordinate the composition of the language with the process of consciousness, which . . . was to her a close reflex of the total living personality. . . . "Gertrude Stein uses the simplest possible words, the common words used by everybody, and a version of the most popular phrasing, to express the most complicated thing. . . . [ She] uses repetition and dislocation to make the word bear all the meaning it has . . . one has to give her work word by word the deliberate attention one gives to something written in italics." —DONALD SUTHERLAND, in Gertrude Stein: A Biography oj Her Work

From a New York Times–bestselling author: A collection of short fiction “reminiscent of the work of Henry James and Edith Wharton” (Library Journal). Crisscrossing a tumultuous century, these stories evoke lives both blessed and cursed by good fortune and reveal the quotidian conflicts of a wonderfully rich milieu. Here are vignettes that capture the loves and jealousies of marriage and friendship, recall days of a rarefied aristocracy, and hint at a new, ambitious young elite. In the title story, a tour de force of humor and emotion, a clergyman prepares a toast for his twenty-fifth wedding anniversary but gets stuck when it comes to his wife’s five-year affair. The narrator in “DeCicco v. Schweizer” imagines the lives of the plaintiff and defendant and spins a wicked tale about a 1902 marriage born more of convenience than of love. And in “The Last of the Great Courtesans,” we meet the unforgettable Milly Marion, born in 1917, who has bewitched everyone she has met in her long, colorful life. Whether these stories concern an anxious draft dodger, a repentant headmaster, or a mischievous writer who ill-advisedly draws from her own family for her fiction, they all offer soulful glimpses into an uncommon world, preserved in our past and yet surprisingly close to our hearts. “His themes are universal—ambition, greed, disappointment, compromise. Some of the most memorable characters are women, trying to find their way in a time of more restricted choices . . . It’s easy to get lost in the author’s elegant and restrained prose.” —Booklist

In these captivating profiles of the first four generations of railroad tycoon "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt''s family, veteran novelist Louis Auchincloss weaves a tale of wealth in pursuit of grandeur. 25 photographs.

The author of The Vanderbilt Era examines sixteen famous friendships, from Boswell and Johnson to Hawthorne and Melville. This delightful series of short essays explores friendship in its various forms—from true intimacy to professional detente between rivals. The friendships, literary and political, span two continents and three centuries—Boswell and Johnson, Fitzgerald and Hemingway, Richelieu and Father Joseph, FDR and Harry Hopkins, Edith Wharton and Margaret Chanler—sixteen sketches in all. Auchincloss approaches his subjects with grace, tact, and insight, subtly defining the peculiar, gentle chemistry on which platonic bonds depend. The result is a surprising array of social patterns and personal destinies, all stemming from the simple desire for human company.

A young Manhattan art museum curator goes to questionable lengths to garner success in this dramatic novel by the author of Diary of a Yuppie. In a world of opulent museums, lavish homes, and extravagant dreams, public spectacle pales before private intrigue, and the pursuit of power is the finest art. Welcome to the world of master storyteller Louis Auchincloss. “In a small but distinguished museum on Central Park West, battle lines are arranged, pitting a brash young curator, imbued with a craving for personal grandeur and a lust for the directorship of the museum, against colleagues whose main concern is the integrity of the collections they guard . . . . Auchincloss . . . is a deft guide through a closed-in world.” —Publishers Weekly

Six stories blending ancient Greek mythology with modern, upper-class Manhattan, from the author of Skinny Island. Louis Auchincloss once again evokes the beguiling world of New York society that he has made his own special literary landscape. Inspired by the colorful mosaic of ancient Greek myths, he has created six equally rich contemporary fables—six lives governed by false gods. Hermes, or in Auchincloss’s interpretation, “god of the self-made man,” is a Jewish lawyer who finds acceptance into WASP society only at greatest personal cost; Hephaestus is a bachelor designer of Palladian villas whose young bride, enamored of newfangled things, compels him to “go modern.” In other stories, a former World War II naval officer, guided perhaps by the goddess Athene, escapes a sinking cruise ship by disguising himself as a woman; and a Catholic convert, distracted by the muse Polyhymnia, is torn between his priestly duties and his worldly social and artistic ambitions. In every tale a unique moral sensibility holds sway, revealing how the pagan impulse may surface in the most unlikely and provocative situations, compromising even the noblest of spirits. Keenly insightful, flawlessly executed, False Gods is the work of a National Medal of Arts winner, widely acclaimed as American society’s most entertaining and intelligent critic. Praise for False Gods “These modern-day tales subtly describe the effects of moral conflict and compromised values . . . . These fables are finely crafted and eloquently written.” —Library Journal

The marriage of Dexter and Rosalie Fairchild--a relationship reflecting the security and privilege of their upper-class New York City lives--is disrupted by personal and political tensions arising from the Civil War.

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