John Phillips Marquand (1893 –1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for The Late George Apley in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America\'s upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.

A poor boy falls in love with a privileged young woman and learns a bitter lesson about the haves and the have-nots in this dramatic tale from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Late George Apley As a young boy, Tom Michael walked with his father, Alfred, along the streets of Michael's Harbor, Massachusetts, and gazed across the water at the stately mansions on Warning Hill. Imagining the lives of the families inside those majestic homes was an enjoyable distraction, a cherished bond between father and son. Years later, after the shocking tragedy of his father's suicide, Tom holds the memory of those walks dear. When he meets and falls in love with Marianne Jellett, daughter of the self-made millionaire Grafton Jellett, he is thrilled to know one of Warning Hill's most prominent families. He is wholly unprepared for the pain that Marianne will cause him, and for the discovery of a connection between the ruthless Grafton and his...

FOUR COMPLETE NOVELSYOUR TURN, MR. MOTOTHINK FAST, MR. MOTOMR. MOTO IS SO SORRYRIGHT YOU ARE, MR. MOTOJOHN P. MARQUAND was born in 1893 in Wilmington, Delaware. Marquand graduated from Harvard in 1915, and settled in Newbury, Massachusetts. He worked as a reporter for the Boston Transcript and the New York Herald Tribune and served as a lieutenant in the army during World War I.An extremely popular writer, Marquand was noted for his novels of manners, which earned him the title of “martini-aged Victorian.” In 1938 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Late George Apley.His character Mr. Moto, a Japanese agent, was a highly successful creation, both in the book and in the movie version, in which Peter Lorre played Mr. Moto.Marquand died in 1960 in Newbury, Massachusetts.

A brilliant comedy of manners about a Boston Brahmin's search for meaning from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Late George Apley In preparation for the twenty-fifth reunion of his class at Harvard, Harry Pulham is asked to collect and edit the personal histories of his fellow alumni. A glance at the previous year's Class Book tells him just how tedious the assignment will be: "I have been very busy all this time practising corporation law and trying to raise a family," a typical entry reads. "I still like to go to the football games and cheer for Harvard." Yet Harry's autobiography is almost indistinguishable from those of his classmates. From his career at a Boston investment firm to his marriage to childhood friend Kay Motford, he has always made the safe, familiar choice—with one exception. For a brief interlude after World War I, Harry joined an advertising agency in Manhattan and fell in love with a beautiful,...