The Midlander is the final part of Booth Tarkington's Growth trilogy. It concludes the story of a family in a crumbling town, and in particular, of two brothers and their troubled relationship.

Mid-uest Babbitt, whose dream bring him unhappiness.

The third installment in Booth Tarkington's “Growth Series", “The Midlander” is a 1923 novel by Booth Tarkington. The story continues exploring the rapid development of the Unites States through the eyes of the Ambersons, a declining aristocratic family living in Indianapolis during the final days of the Civil War. “The Midlander” offers the reader a fantastic glimpse of a unique part of American history and is not to be missed by fans and collectors of Tarkington's seminal work. Newton Booth Tarkington (1869–1946) was an American dramatist and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist. Among only three other novelists to have won the Pulitzer Prize more than once, Tarkington was one of the greatest authors of the 1910s and 1920s who helped usher in Indiana's Golden Age of literature. Other notable works by this author include: “Monsieur Beaucaire” (1900), “Penrod” (1914), and “The Turmoil” (1915). Read & Co. Classics is republishing this novel now in a new edition complete with a biography of the author from “Encyclopædia Britannica” (1922).

On a distant world, far from home and anyone who he would call kin, a lone monstrosity struggles to survive. He was stolen from his home, twisted in both body and mind, and unleashed again and again against the enemies of a shadowy alien empire. Yet, for all their power, all their superior alien technology, Alex managed to regain himself, to break free of the fog, and carve a bloody path to freedom. The planet he has found himself on is a place of wonder and danger, where bird-like creatures known as the dakri command the very elements to obey them, where a young feudal diarchy wars with an ancient and disgraced priesthood, and where nightmares and gods spring forth from the minds that birthed them. A place that is not ready for the interstellar war that Alex has dragged to their doorstep. This is the first book of The Humanity Within Trilogy. An epic series written by Knight Breeze following a story where swords and sorcery clash with an alien empire, all while a single mutated human caught in the crossfire desperately tries his best to survive. This series contains the following printed or planned books: What I've Become. Nightmare of the Past. Legends of the Future. (Planned, title still subject to change)

A familiar midwestern novel in the tradition of Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis, The Turmoil was the best-selling novel of 1915. It is set in a small, quiet city--never named but closely resembling the author's hometown of Indianapolis--that is quickly being transformed into a bustling, money-making nest of competitors more or less overrun by "the worshippers of Bigness." "There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke," begins The Turmoil, the first volume of Pulitzer Prize-winner Booth Tarkington's "Growth" trilogy. A narrative of loss and change, a love story, and a warning about the potential evils of materialism, the book chronicles two midwestern families trying to cope with the onset of industrialization. Tarkington believed that culture could flourish even as the country was increasingly fueled by material progress. The Turmoil, the first great success of his career, tells the intertwined stories of two families: the Sheridans, whose integrity wanes as their wealth increases, and the Vertrees, who remain noble but impoverished. Linked by the romance between a Sheridan son and a Vertrees daughter, the story of the two families provides a dramatic view of what America was like on the verge of a new order. An introduction by Lawrence R. Rodgers places the novel squarely in the social and cultural context of the Progressive Era. The book also features illustrations by C. E. Chambers.

Twice he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction: in 1919 for The Magnificent Ambersons and in 1922 for Alice Adams. His play Clarence launched Alfred Lunt on his distinguished career and provided Helen Hayes with an early successful role. His Penrod books continued the American boy-story tradition which started with the works of Mark Twain. Early in this century, through his novel The Turmoil, he warned of sacrificing the environment to industrial growth. Yet, since his death in 1946, Booth Tarkington -- this writer from the Midwest who accomplished so much -- has faded from the memory of the reading public, and many of his works are out of print. But his memory is fresh and vivid in the mind of his grandniece Susanah Mayberry, and her recollections of him leap from the pages of her book. She recalls that as a small child, before she was aware of her uncle’s fame as a writer, he emerged as the one figure whose outline was clear among the blur of forms that made up her large family. “No one who met Booth Tarkington ever forgot him,” says his great-niece. So, she introduces the reader to this multifaceted individual: the young man-about-town, the prankster, the writer of humorous letters (who drew caricatures in the margins), the bereaved father, the inspiration of the affection of three women (simultaneously), and the lover and collector of art objects and portraits. The author of this volume draws primarily upon her own personal experiences, family lore, and letters (some never published before) to portray her amiable uncle. She tells of the pleasure it gave him to entertain his young nephews and nieces at his Tudor-style winter home in Indianapolis – where they played a spirited form of charades. She recalls vacations which she, as a college student, spent at his light-filled summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine – where she met his famous neighbors. During all of those times, Uncle Booth was a keen observer of yout who created Penrod and friends from his observations, and the teacher of youth, who transmitted his own love of art to his young relations. While recapturing memories of the unforgettable Tarkington, Mayberry recreates an era of elegant and leisurely living, when on the dining table “in the fingerbowls . . . were nosegays of sweet peas and lemon verbena or geranium leaves.” Susanah Mayberry shares with the reader a treasure of family photographs including Tarkington at various ages; interiors and exteriors of his homes; her father and uncles as children (the models of Penrod); the writer’s indomitable sister who championed his early work; and his devoted second wife, a “gentle dragon,” who kept his day-to-day life running smoothly. Indiana residents will feel “at home” with the frequent references to the state and its people. Indianapolis of the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries influenced Tarkington and his work. The city was his birthplace and his death place. He spent a year at Purdue University where he met such “brilliancies” as George Ade and John McCutcheon. Other famous and not-so-famous Hoosiers became a part of Tarkington’s life, and they—along with international literary, theatrical, and political luminaries—reappear in Susanah Mayberry’s recollections of her amiable uncle.