Author | Booth Tarkington |
---|---|
Illustrator | Gordon Grant |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Doubleday, Doran & Co. |
Publication date | 1929 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Pages | 321 pages |
Preceded by | Penrod and Sam |
Penrod Jashber is the third novel in a series by Booth Tarkington about the adventures of Penrod Schofield, an 11-year-old middle-class boy in a small city in the Midwest.
Initially serialized in Cosmopolitan and published in 1929, it was preceded by Penrod in 1914 and by Penrod and Sam in 1916. The three novels were published together as one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story, in 1931.
Penrod Jashber is more novelistic in form than the preceding books; rather than each chapter standing as a separate story, the bulk of this book has one story arc, of Penrod's pretending to be detective George B. Jashber. Otherwise it is similar: it is written in the same style and takes place at the same time.
Penrod Jashber begins when Penrod's best friend Sam Williams acquires a new pup. The boys squabble about his name, the pup and Penrod's dog Duke rampage through Penrod's house, and as punishment Penrod's parents force him to wear a smelly asafetida [1] bag. Penrod copes with this humiliation by telling tall tales of his exploits to his future girlfriend, lovely Marjorie Jones. Marjorie confesses that the reason she doesn't mind his "asafid'ty" bag is that her mother has made her wear one too.
The detective story arc begins when Penrod further immerses himself in fantasy by penning a hilarious bandit epic starring George B. Jashber, the "notted detective." In the first Penrod book, he was hard at work on this picaresque adventure novel, with heroic road agent Harold Ramorez menaced by corrupt police detectives. Over time, he comes to see detectives as more interesting, skews the novel toward the exploits of Jashber, and decides to become one. Imitating his movie heroes, he squints his eyes and talks out of the side of his mouth. He paints an office sign in the (empty) stable and acquires an official-looking badge from the cook's nephew who took a mail-order course. To practice, he shadows his school teacher in the evenings.
Now adequately experienced, Penrod enlists Sam and the two Negro boys who live across the alley, Herman and Verman, as assistants. Needing a scoundrel to shadow, Penrod overhears his parents jocularly referring to the polished manners of Penrod's young-adult sister Margaret's boyfriend, Mr. Herbert Hamilton Dade, as being appropriate to a horse thief. The rest of the book concerns the increasingly desperate but futile efforts of Penrod and his gang to prove to themselves that Mr. Dade really does steal horses.
Their efforts are supported by Sam's older brother Robert, a rival for Margaret's affections. This support proves embarrassing when the boys' harassment of Mr. Dade finally sends the boys' fantasy world colliding with the dull reality of the adult world. Distressed by the exposure of his fantasy world, Penrod discards the now-alien persona of Jashber and dissolves the agency, and he and the other boys return to their childish occupations.
The Shadow is a fictional character created by American magazine publishers Street & Smith and writer Walter B. Gibson. Originally created to be a mysterious radio show narrator, and developed into a distinct literary character in 1931 by Gibson, The Shadow has been adapted into other forms of media, including American comic books, comic strips, serials, video games, and at least five feature films. The radio drama included episodes voiced by Orson Welles.
Newton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons (1918) and Alice Adams (1921). He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike, and Colson Whitehead. In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered the United States' greatest living author. Several of his stories were adapted to film.
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Penrod and Sam is a 1937 drama film directed by William C. McGann and written by Lillie Hayward and Hugh Cummings. It was the third screen version of American writer Booth Tarkington's novel Penrod and Sam. The film stars Billy Mauch, Frank Craven, Spring Byington, Craig Reynolds, Harry Watson and Jackie Morrow. The film was released by Warner Bros. on February 28, 1937.
Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventures of Penrod Schofield, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War I Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In Penrod, Tarkington established characters who appeared in two further books, Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jashber (1929). The three books were published together in one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story, in 1931.
Seventeen: A Tale of Youth and Summer Time and the Baxter Family Especially William is a humorous novel by Booth Tarkington that gently satirizes first love, in the person of a callow 17-year-old, William Sylvanus Baxter. Seventeen takes place in a small city in the Midwestern United States shortly before World War I. It was published as sketches in the Metropolitan Magazine in 1915 and 1916, and collected in a single volume by Harper and Brothers in 1916, when it was the bestselling novel in the United States.
Penrod and Sam is a novel by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1916. it is set pre-World War I. This is a sequel to his earlier book Penrod, and focuses more on the relationship between the main character of the previous book, Penrod Schofield, and his best friend, Sam Williams. More of Penrod's adventures appear in the final book of the series Penrod Jashber (1929). The three books were published together in one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story, in 1931.
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Penrod and Sam is a 1931 American pre-Code comedy film directed by William Beaudine and starring Leon Janney and Frank Coghlan Jr. It is an adaptation of the novel Penrod and Sam by Booth Tarkington. Beaudine had previously directed a 1923 silent version, and was invited to remake his earlier success.
Penrod is a 1922 American comedy film directed by Marshall Neilan and written by Lucita Squier. It is based on the 1914 novel Penrod by Booth Tarkington. The film stars Wesley Barry, Tully Marshall, Claire McDowell, John Harron, Gordon Griffith and Newton Hall. The film was released on February 20, 1922, by Associated First National Pictures.