A Biography of John P. Marquand

FAIN: FA-10260-70

Millicent Bell
Boston University (Boston, MA 02215-1300)

Fellow to write authorized biography of John P. Marquand; has unlimited and exclusive access to all unpublished writings and letters of Marquand, which are under control of his heirs. By birth a Boston Brahman, Marquand's art, his own personal origins rooted in older and more stable past. Yet he succeeded as a writer in terms that meant "success" in the popular tradition of making it to the top: he learned not only how to be a skilled craftsman but how write what sold to the widest possible public. His writings display the interplay of these experiences--sense of vanished tradition mingled with the dynamism that make for change. Marquand's life and works reflect the ambiguities of the American cultural tradition. Work on biography adds further dimension to fellow's teaching of American literary tradition. Previous works, Hawthorne's View of the Arttist and Edith Wharton and Henry James, reflect her capabilities in field of literary biography.