John Phillips Marquand was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1893. After graduating from Harvard in 1915 he worked for the Boston Evening Transcript, first as a reporter.
He first gained fame with the Mr. Moto spy stories, beginning with Your Turn, Mr. Moto (1935). He wrote satirical novels about the upper class and aspiring social climbers, especially in New England, including The Late George Apley (1937), Wickford Point (1939), H. M. Pulham, Esquire (1941) and Point of No Return (1949). The Late George Apley won the 1938 Pulitzer Prize, and he died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1960.
Source: Wikipedia