John P. Marquand, Jr.
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John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 – July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for '' The Late George Apley'' in 1938. One of his abiding themes was the confining nature of life in America's upper class and among those who aspired to join it. Marquand treated those whose lives were bound by these unwritten codes with a characteristic mix of respect and satire.


Ancestry, youth and early adulthood

Marquand was the son of Philip Marquand and his wife Margaret née Fuller. His mother was a great-niece of 19th-century transcendentalist and feminist
Margaret Fuller Sarah Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850), sometimes referred to as Margaret Fuller Ossoli, was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movemen ...
. Marquand was also a cousin of Buckminster Fuller. Born in Wilmington, Delaware, he grew up in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where his forebears had lived. There he was raised by his three maiden aunts, while his parents lived in a number of other cities as his father pursued his career. Marquand attended
Newburyport High School Newburyport High School (NHS) is a public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States and is part of the Newburyport Public School System. It was established in 1831 and is one of ...
where he won a scholarship that enabled him to attend Harvard College. His family had a long Harvard tradition, but as an impecunious public school graduate in the heyday of Harvard's Gold Coast, he was an unclubbable outsider. Though turned down by the college newspaper, the '' Harvard Crimson'', Marquand succeeded in being elected to the editorial board of the humor magazine, the '' Harvard Lampoon''. After graduating in 1915, Marquand was hired by ''
The Boston Evening Transcript The ''Boston Evening Transcript'' was a daily afternoon newspaper in Boston, Massachusetts, published from July 24, 1830, to April 30, 1941. Beginnings ''The Transcript'' was founded in 1830 by Henry Dutton and James Wentworth of the firm of D ...
'', working initially as a reporter and later on the ''Transcript's'' bi-weekly magazine section. While he was a student at Harvard, Marquand joined Battery A of the
Massachusetts National Guard The Massachusetts National Guard is the National Guard component for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded as the Massachusetts Bay Colonial Militia on December 13, 1636, it contains the oldest units in the United States Army. What is toda ...
, which, in 1916, was activated. In July 1916, Marquand was sent to the Mexican border. Later, like many of his classmates, he served in the First World War, seeing action in France.


Life and work

Marquand's life and work reflected his ambivalence about American society — and, in particular, the power of its old-line elites. Being rebuffed by fashionable Harvard did not discourage his social aspirations. In 1922, he married Christina Sedgwick, niece of '' The Atlantic Monthly'' editor
Ellery Sedgwick Ellery Sedgwick (February 27, 1872 – April 21, 1960) was an American editor, brother of Henry Dwight Sedgwick. Early life He was born in New York City to Henry Dwight Sedgwick II and Henrietta Ellery (Sedgwick), grand daughter of William El ...
. In 1925, Marquand published his first important book, ''Lord Timothy Dexter'', an exploration of the life and legend of eighteenth-century Newburyport eccentric
Timothy Dexter Timothy Dexter (January 22, 1747 – October 23, 1806) was an American businessman noted for his writing and eccentricity. Biography Dexter was born in Malden in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He had little schooling and dropped out of sch ...
(1763–1806). By the mid-1930s he was a prolific and successful writer of fiction for slick magazines like the ''
Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
''. Some of these short stories were of an historical nature as had been Marquand's first two novels (''The Unspeakable Gentleman'' and ''The Black Cargo''). These would later be characterized by Marquand as “costume fiction”, of which he stated that an author “can only approximate (his characters) provided he has been steeped in the (relevant) tradition”. Marquand had abandoned “costume fiction” by the mid-1930s. In the late 1930s, Marquand began producing a series of novels on the dilemmas of class. Most centered on New England, and some were at least partially set in Clyde, Massachusetts, a fictional seaside community based strongly on Marquand's Newburyport. The first of these novels, '' The Late George Apley'' (1937), a satire of Boston's upper class, won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1938. Other Marquand novels exploring New England and class themes include ''Wickford Point'' (1939), ''H.M. Pulham, Esquire'' (1941), and ''Point of No Return'' (1949). The last is especially notable for its satirical portrayal of Harvard anthropologist
W. Lloyd Warner William Lloyd Warner (October 26, 1898 – May 23, 1970) was a pioneering anthropologist and sociologist noted for applying the techniques of British functionalism to understanding American culture. Background William Lloyd Warner was born in ...
, whose Yankee City study attempted (and in Marquand's view, dismally failed) to describe and analyze the manners and mores of Newburyport. Marquand was a part-time war correspondent during World War II. The war's huge effect on American individuals and families is often an element in his later novels. Several characters in these novels are motivated by a sense of duty to aid the war effort, though they are past draft age and even unsure of the value of their contribution. For all of his ambivalence about America's elite, Marquand ultimately succeeded not only in joining it, but in embodying its characteristics. He forgave the upper crust classmates who had snubbed him in college (relationships he satirized in ''H.M. Pulham, Esq ''and '' The Late George Apley''). He was invited to join all the right social clubs in Boston (Tavern, Somerset) and New York (
Century Association The Century Association is a private social, arts, and dining club in New York City, founded in 1847. Its clubhouse is located at 7 West 43rd Street near Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. It is primarily a club for men and women with distinction ...
, University). Through his second marriage to Adelaide Ferry Hooker, he became linked to the Rockefeller family (her sister, Blanchette, was married to
John D. Rockefeller III John Davison Rockefeller III (March 21, 1906 – July 10, 1978) was an American philanthropist. Rockefeller was the eldest son and second child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller as well as a grandson of Standard Oil co-found ...
). He maintained luxury homes in Newburyport and in the Caribbean.


Personal life

Marquand was married twice and had five children. He married Christina Sedgwick in 1922, and they had two children: son John Jr and a daughter Christina Jr. Marquand and Sedgwick divorced in 1935. The following year, Marquand married Adelaide Ferry Hooker, a descendant of Thomas Hooker. They had three children together, two sons and a daughter, before divorcing in 1958.


Death

On July 16, 1960, Marquand died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, of a heart attack in his sleep at the age of 66. He is buried in Sawyer Hill Burying Ground in Newburyport.


Novels

Mr Moto novels *'' No Hero''. Boston, Little Brown, 1935; as ''Mr. Moto Takes a Hand'', London, Hale, 1940; as ''Your Turn, Mr. Moto'', New York, Berkley, 1963. *'' Thank You, Mr. Moto''. Boston, Little Brown, 1936; London, Jenkins, 1937. *''
Think Fast, Mr. Moto ''Think Fast, Mr. Moto'' is a 1937 film directed by Norman Foster and featuring a mysterious Japanese detective named Mr. Moto. It is the first of eight films in the Mr. Moto series, all based on the character Mr. Moto created by John P. Marqu ...
''. Boston, Little Brown, 1937; London, Hale, 1938. *''
Mr. Moto Is So Sorry ''Mr. Moto Is So Sorry'' was originally published in serial form in the ''Saturday Evening Post'' from July 2 to August 13, 1938, and was first published in book form in 1938. It is the fourth of six Mr. Moto novels and can also be found in the o ...
''. Boston, Little Brown, 1938; London, Hale, 1939. *'' Last Laugh, Mr. Moto''. Boston, Little Brown, 1942; London, Hale, 1943. *''
Stopover Tokyo ''Stopover Tokyo'' is a 1957 American film noir crime film directed by Richard L. Breen and starring Robert Wagner, Joan Collins, Edmond O'Brien and Ken Scott. Filmed in Japan in CinemaScope, the film is set in Tokyo and follows a US counterint ...
''. Boston, Little Brown, and London, Collins, 1957; as ''The Last of Mr. Moto'', New York, Berkley, 1963; as ''Right You Are, Mr. Moto'', New York, Popular Library, 1977. Other crime novels *''Ming Yellow''. Boston, Little Brown, and London, Lovat Dickson, 1935. *''Don't Ask Questions''. London, Hale, 1941. *''It's Loaded, Mr. Bauer''. London, Hale, 1949. Literary novels *''The Unspeakable Gentleman''. New York, Scribner, and London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1922. *''The Black Cargo''. New York, Scribner, and London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1925. *''Warning Hill''. Boston, Little Brown, 1930. *'' The Late George Apley''. Boston, Little Brown, 1937. *''Wickford Point''. Boston, Little Brown, 1939. *''H.M. Pulham, Esquire''. Boston, Little Brown, and London, Hale, 1942. *''So Little Time''. Boston, Little Brown, 1943; London, Hale, 1944. *''Repent in Haste''. Boston, Little Brown, 1945. *''
B.F.'s Daughter ''B.F.'s Daughter'' is a 1948 drama film directed by Robert Z. Leonard and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin. It was adapted from John P. Marquand's 1946 novel of the same name, about a prominent couple whose marital tensions come to a b ...
''. Boston, Little Brown, 1946; as ''Polly Fulton'', London, Hale, 1947. *''Point of No Return''. Boston, Little Brown, and London, Hale, 1949. *''Melville Goodwin, USA''. Boston, Little Brown, 1951; London, Hale, 1952. *''Sincerely, Willis Wayde''. Boston, Little Brown, and London, Hale, 1955. *''Women and Thomas Harrow''. Boston, Little Brown, 1958; London, Collins, 1959. ''The Late George Apley'', ''Wickford Point'', ''H.M. Pulham, Esquire'', ''So Little Time'', ''Repent in Haste,'' and ''B.F.'s Daughter'' were published as Armed Services Editions during WWII. Collections of short stories''Do Tell Me, Doctor Johnson'' was privately printed in small numbers, 1928 (one story, 47 pages). A search of the '' eaders' Guide to Periodical Literature' indicates that Marquand had 111 short stories published in various magazines (mostly in the ''Saturday Evening Post'') from 1921 through 1947, of which 18 appear in ''Four of a Kind'', ''Haven's End'' and ''Thirty Years'' (along with nil, three and five new stories, resp.). *''Four of a Kind'', 1923. *''Haven's End''. Boston, Little Brown, 1933; London, Hale, 1938. *''Thirty Years'', 1954. *''Life at Happy Knoll'', 1957.


Notes


References

* Stephen Birmingham, ''The Late John Marquand: A Biography'', J. B. Lippincott Company 1972. *Millicent Bell, ''Marquand: An American Life'', Little, Brown and Company, 1979.


External links

* * *
The Mr. Moto novels of John P. Marquand
website by James S. Koga.
John Marquand Society of North AmericaExtensive biography on MarquandPhotos of the first edition of ''The Late George Apley'' Yale University Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Collection of American Literature, Copyright 1996-2007 by the Yale University Library. Guide to the John P. Marquand Collection, YCAL MSS 48, by T. Michael Womack, May 1990, Revised: 2010-02-10
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marquand, John P. 1893 births 1960 deaths 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American novelists American male novelists American male short story writers United States Army personnel of World War I American satirical novelists American spy fiction writers American Unitarians Burials in Massachusetts The Harvard Lampoon alumni Harvard College alumni National Guard (United States) officers Pulitzer Prize for the Novel winners Writers from Newburyport, Massachusetts Writers from Wilmington, Delaware Novelists from Massachusetts Massachusetts National Guard personnel