RAMPOLE PLACE is at once Isabella Holt's most ambitious work and her richest, most entertaining story. Centered in the Middle West, it becomes in its extraordinary range of incident, emotion and physical detail a faithful picture of Americans coming of age in the fertile years between 1906 and 1912. A time and a place come immediately alive in the colors and texture of reality. The thriving City of Meridian in the state of Algonquin stands midway between a pioneer past and the promise of the future. Its business, politics, morals, tastes and entertainments reflect both tradition and the national impulse to change. This is expressed in the concerns and activities of a large cast of characters, all expertly realized and seen in an environment wonderfully evocative of a vanished era in American life. But attention is chiefly held by the Rampoles, Meridian's first family, and by those who live with them in the exclusive residential section called Rampole Place. Here the challenge of change is greater for its impact on long-established order buttressed by wealth and social position. Horace Rampole, United States Senator from Algonquin, looks hopefully to the future yet cherishes for his children a security founded in the past. He divides his allegiance between Teddy Roosevelt's reforms and a corrupt local machine. Anson Epps, adept and unscrupulous, thrusts his way into Horace's world and his tactics presage a new political cynicism. Philip Grover tries with gentle dignity but inadequate force to avert personal disaster and the collapse of the tradition to which he is heir, while his pretty, vacuous wife finds a fresh and dangerous freedom in the breakdown of old standards.

No dust jacket, bumped corners. No writing, first few pages had the top corners turned down (see photos).

Hardcover: 344 pages - Publisher: Bobbs-Merrill Company; possible first edition (1952) - Language: English - Product Dimensions: 8 1/4 x 5 3/4 inches