Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1869. He served one term as a Republican in the Indiana House of Representatives in 1902 and 1903, and he wrote 25 plays, some adapted from his novels.
His books include Penrod (1914), Seventeen (1916), The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1919 and in 1922, and he died in Indianapolis in 1946.