Publisher's Synopsis
Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventures of Penrod Schofield, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War I Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.In Penrod, Tarkington established characters who appeared in two further books, Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jashber (1929). The three books were published together in one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story, in 1931.... Newton Booth Tarkington (July 29, 1869 - May 19, 1946) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only three novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner and John Updike. Biography: Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of John S. Tarkington and Elizabeth Booth Tarkington. He was named after his maternal uncle Newton Booth, then the governor of California. He was also related to Chicago Mayor James Hutchinson Woodworth through Woodworth's wife Almyra Booth Woodworth. Tarkington first attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis, but completed his secondary education at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school on the East Coast. He attended Purdue University for two years, where he was a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity and the university's Morley Eating Club. He later made substantial donations to Purdue for building an all-men's residence hall, which the university named Tarkington Hall in his honor. Purdue awarded him an honorary doctorate...... Worth Brehm (1883-1928). Worth Brehm became interested in art through his brother George. He prepared a series of sample drawings in Indiana, brought them to New York, and Outing magazine bought them all. Publication of these pictures led Harper's to commission him to illustrate The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. He later did general illustration for many magazines; the best known were for the Penrod stories by Booth Tarkington in Cosmopolitan. While Brehm had a good color sense, he seldom had the opportunity to use it, since printing in color was still sparingly used because of the cost. Worth usually worked in charcoal. He was never at a loss for models, and regularly used the neighboring children for his characters, sometimes dressing them in period clothing, as befitted the story. Brehm's work was always in demand from magazines and advertisers until his untimely death at age 44.
