Louis Auchincloss, born September 27, 1917, in New York City, is a prolific novelist, historian and essayist. He grew up among the privileged classes he was to write about, attending Groton and Yale University. After serving in the Navy in World War II, Auchincloss wondered whether to become a writer or a lawyer and finally realized he could do both, producing a fiction book a year while serving as a wills and trusts attorney with a major Wall Street law firm.

Among Auchincloss's best-known books are the multigenerational sagas The House of Five Talents and Portrait in Brownstone ; The Rector of Justin , the tale of the beloved headmaster of a school like Groton trying to deal with changing times; and The Embezzler , a look at white-collar crime. Auchincloss has patterned his writing after that of Henry James and Edith Wharton.

Selected Works

Novels

• The Indifferent Children (1947)
• Sybil (1952)
• A Law for the Lion (1953)
• The Great World and Timothy Colt (1956)
• Venus in Sparta (1958)
• Pursuit of the Prodigal (1959)
• The House of Five Talents (1960)
• Portrait in Brownstone (1962)
• The Rector of Justin (1964)
• The Embezzler (1966)
• A World of Profit (1968)
• I Come as a Thief (1972)
• The Dark Lady (1977)
• The Country Cousin (1978)
• The House of the Prophet (1980)
• The Cat and the King (1981)
• Watchfires (1982)
• Exit Lady Masham (1983)
• The Book Class (1984)
• Honourable Men (1986)
• Diary of a Yuppie (1987)
• The Golden Calves (1988)
• (1989)
• The Lady of Situations (1990)
• Three Lives (1993)
• The Education of Oscar Fairfax (1995)
• Her Infinite Variety (2000)

Short Stories

• The Injustice Collectors (1950)
• The Romantic Egoists (1954)
• Powers of Attorney (1963)
• Tales of Manhattan (1967)
• (1970)
• The Partners (1974)
• The Winthrop Covenant (1976)
• Narcissa and Other Fables (1982)
• (1987)
• False Gods (1992)
• Tales of Yesteryear (1994)
• The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss (1994)
• The Atonement and Other Stories (1997)
• The Anniversary and Other Stories (1999)
• Manhattan Monologues (2002)

Nonfiction

• Reflections of a Jacobite (1961)
• (1965)
• On Sister Carrie ( 1968)
• Motiveless Malignity (1969)
• (1972)
• Richelieu (1972)
• A Writer's Capital (1974)
• Reading Henry James (1975)
• (1979)
• (1979)
• (1985)
• (1989)
• (1991)
• (1994)
• (1996)
• Woodrow Wilson (2000)