The best-selling book of 1915, The Turmoil is the first novel of Booth Tarkington’s “Growth” Trilogy, the second novel of which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize. The novel explores cultural changes of the American Midwest during the Industrial Era. It is set in a small, quiet city--never named but closely resembling the author’s hometown of Indianapolis--that is quickly being transformed into a bustling, money-making nest of competitors more or less overrun by “the worshippers of Bigness.” The Turmoil is a narrative of loss and change, a love story, and a warning about the potential evils of materialism. The book chronicles two midwestern families trying to cope with the onset of industrialization.
Tarkington believed that culture could flourish even as the country was increasingly fueled by material progress. The Turmoil, the first great success of his career, tells the intertwined stories of two families: the Sheridans, whose integrity wanes as their wealth increases, and the Vertrees, who remain noble but impoverished. Linked by the romance between a Sheridan son and a Vertrees daughter, the story of the two families provides a dramatic view of what America was like on the verge of a new order.
- Title: The Turmoil: A Novel
- Author: Booth Tarkington
- Illustrated by C.E. Chambers
- Publisher: Grosset & Dunlap (by arrangement with Harper & Brothers)
- Place: New York
- Date: February 1915
- Dedication: To Laurel
- Binding: Bound in light blue cloth covered boards with title printed in darker blue ink. The cover is complete with general wear on the edges and the creases at the spine. Six small dots of purple ink are visible on the front cover. The binding is coming slightly loose but is still intact.
- Text: The pages are slightly yellowed with age but otherwise clean. There are no marks on the text, and the pages are without folds or underlines. The end pages are coming slightly detached at the crease.