Booth Tarkington

The Magnificent Ambersons Booth Tarkington

Major Amberson creates the family fortune in the 1870's. When Isabel, his daughter, is about twenty years old, she is courted by two men: Wilbur Minafer, a quiet businessman, and Eugene Morgan, a debt-ridden lawyer. Morgan destroys his chances in a drinking incident on the Amberson estate. Isabel marries Wilbur, and their only child is George Amberson Minafer. Isabel spoils her wild boy. George treats others with contempt and was once expelled from a prep school for his bad behavior. The townspeople hope to see George get his comeuppance. When George is an eighteen-year-old college student, a ball is held in his honor at the Amberson mansion. Here George meets Eugene Morgan, his mother's former suitor, and falls in love with his nineteen-year-old daughter, Lucy. Eugene had left town at the time Isabel dismissed him, become an inventor, and returned to town twenty years later to manufacture horseless carriages.