About 6 h 45 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 14 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
George Amberson Minafer grows up in a prosperous Midwestern town convinced that his family's wealth and name entitle him to respect. Protected by his mother Isabel's devotion, he meets less indulgence from Lucy Morgan, whom he hopes to marry. Her father Eugene manufactures automobiles, an industry George scorns even as it transforms the town and challenges the Ambersons' inherited standing.
Reader notes
Wry social observation runs through the family drama, as the narrator pauses over changing fashions, manners and streets. Conversations and domestic disputes carry much of the action, keeping the broader story of industrial growth close to George's pride and the household that sustains it.
How it reads
Writing style
Descriptive · Witty
Tone
Melancholic · Reflective · Satirical · Wistful
Structure
Linear
Driven by
Character · Ideas · Relationships
Point of view
Third person, omniscient
Setting
Fictionalized Indianapolis, Indiana
Reading complexity
Writing
3 / 5
Ideas
3 / 5
Structure
2 / 5
Background knowledge
2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
Writing
How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas
How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure
How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge
Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity
Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
336 pages in the Barnes & Noble Classics 2005 paperback edition.
Which edition is shown here?
Barnes & Noble Classics · 2005 · Paperback. ISBN 9781593082635.
What is the order of books in Growth?
2. The Magnificent Ambersons.
How long does it take to read The Magnificent Ambersons?
About 6 hours 45 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 336-page Barnes & Noble Classics edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Booth Tarkington
Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist whose fiction repeatedly examines Midwestern communities under pressure from money, status, and social change. He works through close observation, satire, and social comedy, allowing a character's self-image to collide with the judgments of family and neighbors. The Magnificent Ambersons gives that method a broad historical scale. Its inherited mansion, automobile manufacturer, and changing town turn industrial growth into a contest between old prestige and new wealth, while George Minafer's arrogance makes the transition intimate. Alice Adams narrows the lens to lower-middle-class aspiration. Alice's improvised version of her household accumulates through clothes, courtship, and money troubles, so comedy tightens into exposure rather than arriving as a separate moral. Tarkington could also build by episode. Penrod gathers schemes, quarrels, and humiliations around a boy whose grand account of events consistently exceeds the disorder he creates. His narration moves between description and wit, attending closely to social performance, whether his characters are defending inherited rank, attempting social ascent, or trying to appear older than they are.
