Booth Tarkington

The Beautiful Lady Booth Tarkington

Booth Tarkinton was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. Alice Adams won a Pulitzer Prize in 1922. The Beautiful Lady is told from the point of view of Ansolini. He is an Italian living in Paris. In order to earn some money he acts as a billboard, shaving his head and putting advertisements for a show placed on the back of his baldhead. He almost meets "the beautiful lady" but keeps his head down and only sees her feet and hears her voice. He next gets a job taking care of Mr. Lambert R. Poor's son and keeping him out of trouble. He and the son become friends, and we learn that Rufus Poor also has a woman who he desires, and to no surprise their feelings are for the same woman, Mrs. Landry.