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Elizabeth Appleton

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Elizabeth Appleton
First ed. cover
AuthorJohn O'Hara
LanguageEnglish
PublisherRandom House
Publication date
1963 (first edition)
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages310 p.
OCLC5663586

Elizabeth Appleton is a novel by John O'Hara written in 1960 and first published in 1963.[1] The story is set mostly in Pennsylvania, and the time of the narrative stretches from the early 1930s to 1950. As in earlier novels, O'Hara minutely chronicles small-town life in America in the first half of the 20th century, especially its social and sexual mores.

Plot

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The title character is a woman from a wealthy New York family who, at a young age, marries a scholar of modest means. They move to his hometown in Pennsylvania, where he becomes a history professor and later a college dean. Several years into the marriage, after having two children, she embarks on a passionate but extremely secret love affair with a wealthy and affable local man.

Commercial success

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The novel appeared in Publishers Weekly's list of the top ten best-selling fiction works in the United States in the year 1963. [2]

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In the first season tv-series Julia, Avis DeVoto is seen reading the book in the episode "Foie Gras".

References

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  1. ^ Vidal, Gore (16 April 1964). "Appointment with O'Hara". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 29 March 2018.
  2. ^ Hackett, Alice Payne and Burke, James Henry (1977). 80 Years of Best Sellers:1895 - 1975. New York: R.R. Bowker Company. p. 189. ISBN 0-8352-0908-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)