John P. Marquand

Marquand, John Phillips

John Phillips Marquand (mär´kwänd), 1893–1960, American novelist, b. Wilmington, Del., grad. Harvard, 1915. Most of Marquand's gently satirical novels examine life among the rich and socially prominent of New England. Often they concern people too hidebound by money or tradition to change their lives for the better ....

Marquand, John Phillips

John Phillips Marquand (mär´kwänd), 1893–1960, American novelist, b. Wilmington, Del., grad. Harvard, 1915. Most of Marquand's gently satirical novels examine life among the rich and socially prominent of New England. Often they concern people too hidebound by money or tradition to change their lives for the better. He first won popularity with a series about a Japanese detective, "Mr. Moto," which ran in the Saturday Evening Post. His reputation as a novelist was established with The Late George Apley (1937, Pulitzer Prize) about a conservative Bostonian. Among his other novels are Wickford Point (1939), H. M. Pulham, Esquire (1941), So Little Time (1943), Point of No Return (1949), Melville Goodwin, U S A (1951), and Life at Happy Knoll (1957).

See study by J. Gross (1963).