Auchincloss, << AW kihn klos, >> Louis (1917-2010), was an American author who ranks as one of the finest literary observers of the American “upper class” of his time. From 1941 until he retired in 1986, Auchincloss was also a lawyer with a Wall Street firm in New York City. Many characters in his novels are attorneys.
Auchincloss acknowledged the influence of the American authors Henry James and Edith Wharton. Like them, he saw that the traditions of family, social position, and wealth can frequently decline into snobbishness and materialism. The Great World and Timothy Colt (1956) shows a lawyer’s desire for success and his struggle to satisfy his principles. His novel The Rector of Justin (1964) is a study of a famous headmaster of a New England prep school. Auchincloss’s short stories were collected in The Winthrop Covenant (1976), Narcissa and Other Fables (1983), Skinny Island (1987), and The Anniversary (1999). His other novels include I Come As a Thief (1972), The Partners (1974), The House of the Prophet (1980), The Golden Calves (1988), The Scarlet Letters (2003), and East Side Story (2004). His essays were collected in The Style’s the Man (1994).
Louis Stanton Auchincloss was born on Sept. 27, 1917, in Lawrence, New York. He attended Groton, a private school; Yale University; and the University of Virginia. He described his early life in an autobiography, A Writer’s Capital (1974). Auchincloss died on Jan. 26, 2010.
