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Beasley's Christmas Party
A melodramatic folksy Christmas story, a little like Dickens - with a Tiny Tim, but also with some romance. Tarkington's writings are very much set in his early 1900s American culture. We are meant to sympathize with the crippled child but not even notice the slights to the black servants. Still, Tarkington promotes kindness and uses a milder style of humor than many authors of his day. (Arnold Banner)
Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1909
About the author
Booth Tarkington
500 books190 followersNewton Booth Tarkington was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams. He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction/Novel more than once, along with William Faulkner, John Updike and Colson Whitehead. Although he is little read now, in the 1910s and 1920s he was considered America's greatest living author.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
December 25, 2025
A great Christmas story elicits a lingering emotional response, ultimately setting hearts ablaze with holiday cheer and gratitude.
Unfortunately, Beasley’s Christmas Party doesn’t rise to the occasion.
For starters, this is a cheap, watered-down version of A Christmas Carol. The witty, humorous lines are missing, and Tarkington doesn’t develop the characters well enough. What little character development is done is based on rushed, overused tropes.
Also, the plot is so contrived as to be laughable, and the last half of the book is entirely predictable.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $45.78 from Abebooks (First edition, first print from 1909)
Audiobook - $84.99 per year through Everand
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Unfortunately, Beasley’s Christmas Party doesn’t rise to the occasion.
For starters, this is a cheap, watered-down version of A Christmas Carol. The witty, humorous lines are missing, and Tarkington doesn’t develop the characters well enough. What little character development is done is based on rushed, overused tropes.
Also, the plot is so contrived as to be laughable, and the last half of the book is entirely predictable.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Hardcover Text – $45.78 from Abebooks (First edition, first print from 1909)
Audiobook - $84.99 per year through Everand
Connect With Me!
Blog Threads BookTube Facebook Insta My Bookstore at Pango
March 22, 2020
Read this entire chatty novella in one hour tops during the Covid-19 self isolate sequester order. And is it happy. Hit the spot perfectly.
What imagination is needed and is a necessary gift at various times.
Booth Tarkington's delightful descriptive abilities were enjoyable as well.
This would be a fine Christmas time read for nearly any age.
Happy is what you make it.
What imagination is needed and is a necessary gift at various times.
Booth Tarkington's delightful descriptive abilities were enjoyable as well.
This would be a fine Christmas time read for nearly any age.
Happy is what you make it.
December 3, 2020
A short Christmas story--as the description says, even down to having a Tiny Tim! It's available for free for the Kindle from Amazon.
The only question I had was, why would Beasley want to run for political office? It just gets you peeping toms outside your windows!
The only question I had was, why would Beasley want to run for political office? It just gets you peeping toms outside your windows!
September 16, 2016
Beasley's Christmas Party (1909) by Booth Tarkington is a sweet tale of the Midwest. It opens by introducing us to a young man who has recently come to Wainwright to work on the Wainwright Morning Despatch as a cub reporter. He has high hopes of interviewing Mr. David Beasley, a well-known and well-respected local politician who may have the governorship in his sights. But Mr. Beasley is a quiet, retiring gentleman who doesn't care much for talking and doesn't interview well. Our reporter hero just happens to live next door to Beasley's residence and begins to notice some odd goings-on. Mr. Beasley talks to people who aren't there and holds athletic contests with invisible foes. What's happened to him--has he quietly gone off his rocker? And then Beasley arranges for a grand gala at his house for Christmas. When his political enemies get wind of it, they are determined to spy on the proceedings and make trouble for him among the townspeople. After all, what kind of man would hold such a gala and not invite any of his good neighbors? They're in for quite a surprise.
This is a very sweet and warmhearted story--just right for the Christmas season (yes, I'm a little early!). There is just a hint of mystery, but the story is primarily a romantic little slice of Midwestern life in the early 20th Century. Nice and short--it is a quick and enjoyable read.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
This is a very sweet and warmhearted story--just right for the Christmas season (yes, I'm a little early!). There is just a hint of mystery, but the story is primarily a romantic little slice of Midwestern life in the early 20th Century. Nice and short--it is a quick and enjoyable read.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
December 7, 2023
‘It was Christmas Eve and I had not known it. I leaned back in my chair in sudden loneliness. What pictures coming before me of long ago Christmas Eve’s at home. Old Christmas Eve’s where there was a tree.’
In the 1910’s and ‘20s, Booth Tarkington was considered the greatest contemporary American author. He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize more than once. He even served for one term in the Indiana House of Representatives. With all these accolades, Booth Tarkington should be a National Treasure. Yet today he is mostly forgotten. But if you read his writings, it’s not hard to see why.
I’ve read his novella Monsieur Beaucaire earlier this year and found it to be quite pretentious. I decided to give Tarkington a second chance by reading yet another one of his novellas. Although the story was a little bit more fleshed out than Beaucaire, it still proved to be lacking.
What I’ve discovered about Tarkington is he is very heavy on dialogue, and gives us little narrative. Whereas Beaucaire is nothing at all but dialogue, Mr. Beasley is at least 3/4 dialogue. It’s almost as if Tarkington is writing the soul of the novel, yet never fleshes it out, a soul without a body if you will.
Mr. Beasley, a candidate for Governor, becomes the trustee for a young sickly orphan boy who has a complication of infirmities that have kept him on his back most of his life. He wears braces all over. His bones and insides just seem to have grown wrong. This character, who somehow walked off a particular Dickens’s novel, is not Tiny Tim. His name is Hamilton Swift, Jr. The boy never had any friends so he imagines them. Mr. Beasley is a silent man who was just born quiet. He never talks… except to children.
But Mr. Beasley is having a Christmas Party. The problem? No one in the village was invited. What they find about the mysterious Mr. Beasley just might be horrifying.
In the 1910’s and ‘20s, Booth Tarkington was considered the greatest contemporary American author. He is one of only four novelists to win the Pulitzer Prize more than once. He even served for one term in the Indiana House of Representatives. With all these accolades, Booth Tarkington should be a National Treasure. Yet today he is mostly forgotten. But if you read his writings, it’s not hard to see why.
I’ve read his novella Monsieur Beaucaire earlier this year and found it to be quite pretentious. I decided to give Tarkington a second chance by reading yet another one of his novellas. Although the story was a little bit more fleshed out than Beaucaire, it still proved to be lacking.
What I’ve discovered about Tarkington is he is very heavy on dialogue, and gives us little narrative. Whereas Beaucaire is nothing at all but dialogue, Mr. Beasley is at least 3/4 dialogue. It’s almost as if Tarkington is writing the soul of the novel, yet never fleshes it out, a soul without a body if you will.
Mr. Beasley, a candidate for Governor, becomes the trustee for a young sickly orphan boy who has a complication of infirmities that have kept him on his back most of his life. He wears braces all over. His bones and insides just seem to have grown wrong. This character, who somehow walked off a particular Dickens’s novel, is not Tiny Tim. His name is Hamilton Swift, Jr. The boy never had any friends so he imagines them. Mr. Beasley is a silent man who was just born quiet. He never talks… except to children.
But Mr. Beasley is having a Christmas Party. The problem? No one in the village was invited. What they find about the mysterious Mr. Beasley just might be horrifying.
December 11, 2017
When I read stories that were written a long time ago, I am often struck by their innocence. Or perhaps more to the point, the innocent times of yesteryear. There is something charming about people then that doesn't seem to exist today. This story is very sweet in the best possible sense of the word. Anyone who will do anything to help a child or animal is aces in my heart and I thought Mr. Beasley was the kind of person that everyone needs in their life.
December 19, 2012
Since I've been enjoying Booth Tarkington's novels very much for a couple of years now, I was happy to discover he'd writtern a short Christmas story too. The titular character, David Beasley, is a quiet man, a well-liked and respected politician, who suddenly begins behaving in an unaccountable and bewildering manner—talking to people (or things) that aren't there, and going through some extraordinary performances in his yard. The story's narrator, a young newspaper reporter and newcomer in town, eventually becomes acquainted with Beasley and discovers the reason behind his behavior—and learns a bit about Beasley's unsuccessful romance, which ended with his fianceé breaking the engagement. He also gets a ringside seat for the Christmas Eve conclusion, when Beasley's political opponents get wind of the odd things going on at his house and think they've found a perfect weapon to use against him—but what they discover takes them by surprise! A fun story, especially enjoyable for anyone who has grown up appreciating the delights of make-believe, and perfect for holiday reading.
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November 14, 2022charm inocint helping christmas novel
December 22, 2025
2.5 stars
Not a favorite story, but I enjoyed the first read of it. It has an element of mystery about part of it which was fun. Told in first person made me feel more like I was being told much of the story instead of experiencing it, but that was probably mostly the style of writing. The Christmas Party did make me smile, but the ending was quite abrupt.
There was at least one use of the Lord's Name as an exclamation.
This is not a Christian book.
Not a favorite story, but I enjoyed the first read of it. It has an element of mystery about part of it which was fun. Told in first person made me feel more like I was being told much of the story instead of experiencing it, but that was probably mostly the style of writing. The Christmas Party did make me smile, but the ending was quite abrupt.
There was at least one use of the Lord's Name as an exclamation.
This is not a Christian book.
December 26, 2011
I got interested in Booth Tarkington via the credit from Orson Welles at the end of his adaptation of The Magnificent Ambersons. I assume that’s about the only way anyone becomes interested in Tarkington, except for academics seeking thoroughly eclipsed literary figures to investigate.
Even in its studio-truncated form, Welles’ Ambersons was, well, magnificent, and I wanted to understand the literary source of this masterpiece. It was visually stunning and as literary a film as I’d ever seen. That’s not always a comfortable combination, but it was Welles’ genius at work.
A good deal of Tarkington remained in the movie, particularly the way he uses bittersweet nostalgia to set up a cold-eyed assessment of advancing modernity. I proceeded to read dozens of his books. Between the famous Strand Books in New York and the not-so-famous but still wonderful Johnson’s Bookstore in Springfield, Mass., they were easy to find. It’s not like they were flying off the shelves.
Reading Tarkington was consistent with my growing taste for artistic discovery, and I was always proud to think I was one of the few non-academics (or non-Hoosiers) in the world who could pass the Booth Tarkington service area on the Indiana Tollway and know why it was there.
I appreciated the writing talent that made him an important author in his time. Even the more old-fashioned stories that contributed to his ultimate dismissal as a lightweight, like Seventeen and Penrod, were still charming enough to entertain as period pieces. And works like The Plutocrat and Ambersons were compelling without qualification.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Tarkington, and the short fiction of Beasley’s Christmas Party falls on the lighter side of his work. But on returning to this author after 20 years I understand better how much appreciating Tarkington is like learning to appreciate your parents. They are bound to seem old fashioned when it comes to everything a 17-year-old really cares about and they don’t. Later, you discover that’s the extent of their naïveté. And on what mattered to him, Tarkington was as sophisticated as fellow two-time Pulitzer Prize winners like William Faulkner and John Updike.
Even in his lighter work, Tarkington’s craftsmanship creates a backdrop of verisimilitude that he and his readers undoubtedly took for granted, but that gives a 21st Century reader a direct line of sight to life in the early 20th, before World War I soured the happiest of novelists.
Even in its studio-truncated form, Welles’ Ambersons was, well, magnificent, and I wanted to understand the literary source of this masterpiece. It was visually stunning and as literary a film as I’d ever seen. That’s not always a comfortable combination, but it was Welles’ genius at work.
A good deal of Tarkington remained in the movie, particularly the way he uses bittersweet nostalgia to set up a cold-eyed assessment of advancing modernity. I proceeded to read dozens of his books. Between the famous Strand Books in New York and the not-so-famous but still wonderful Johnson’s Bookstore in Springfield, Mass., they were easy to find. It’s not like they were flying off the shelves.
Reading Tarkington was consistent with my growing taste for artistic discovery, and I was always proud to think I was one of the few non-academics (or non-Hoosiers) in the world who could pass the Booth Tarkington service area on the Indiana Tollway and know why it was there.
I appreciated the writing talent that made him an important author in his time. Even the more old-fashioned stories that contributed to his ultimate dismissal as a lightweight, like Seventeen and Penrod, were still charming enough to entertain as period pieces. And works like The Plutocrat and Ambersons were compelling without qualification.
It’s been a long time since I’ve read Tarkington, and the short fiction of Beasley’s Christmas Party falls on the lighter side of his work. But on returning to this author after 20 years I understand better how much appreciating Tarkington is like learning to appreciate your parents. They are bound to seem old fashioned when it comes to everything a 17-year-old really cares about and they don’t. Later, you discover that’s the extent of their naïveté. And on what mattered to him, Tarkington was as sophisticated as fellow two-time Pulitzer Prize winners like William Faulkner and John Updike.
Even in his lighter work, Tarkington’s craftsmanship creates a backdrop of verisimilitude that he and his readers undoubtedly took for granted, but that gives a 21st Century reader a direct line of sight to life in the early 20th, before World War I soured the happiest of novelists.
February 25, 2023
Published in 1909.
This is a happy and fun short story from the turn of the century, which makes for good reading at the end of a busy day. Too bad the Kindle version does not include the illustrations; the Project Gutenburg version has them.
🟢 Media form: Project Gutenberg .
🎄
This is a happy and fun short story from the turn of the century, which makes for good reading at the end of a busy day. Too bad the Kindle version does not include the illustrations; the Project Gutenburg version has them.
🟢 Media form: Project Gutenberg .
🎄
November 28, 2011
Lovely little Christmas story, so good, but I couldn't expect less from Booth Tarkington.
December 3, 2017
I loved this book, story is great christmas story, not everyone reads old books, but you should. Tarkington is a very good writer. The story is a good story to read to children. A must read.
January 2, 2020
Sweet read. My grandmother kept this book from when she was young, and I found it among her things.
January 4, 2024
My Christmas read for today was Beasley's Christmas Party by Booth Tarkington written in 1909. Booth Tarkington 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. He won in 1919 and 1922, for his novels The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams.In the 1910s and 1920s he was considered the United States' greatest living author, I don't know who considered him this, but he is good. I don't remember Alice Adams, I wonder if I read it. But this was my Christmas read and it was good.
We begin with Mr. Beasley, poor Mr. Beasley. Okay, that's not quite right, we begin with our narrator walking past Mr. Beasley's home at 4:00 in the morning after his first night's work at the "Wainwright Morning Dispatch". The days when you could still buy a newspaper I guess. Around here you can still get a newspaper, you still pay for a subscription, the only problem I have with this is it is only online. Anyway, his first night is over and he is on his way home, which is a boarding house run by Mrs. Apperthwaite. Next door is "the house", the finest house in Wainwright, a big, old fashioned brick house, painted brown and very plain, set away from the street among splendid forest trees. It's a large house that looked not like a mansion but a home. If you went inside it would be sure to have hearty, old fashioned people living there who would welcome you merrily. A boisterous family, grandfather, grandmother, parent, aunts, uncles, children, on and on, special dinners, game playing....or not.
As he stands in front of the house thinking all these wonderful thoughts a window opens and a man looked out and whistled loudly. Before he knew what to do the man called for Simpledoria, and followed that with "Why there you are!" then telling someone in the room that Simpledoria is right underneath the window and he would bring him right up. When he opened the door neither boy, dog or cat was in sight, but the man calls for Simpledoria telling him he may have caught his death of cold roving out at such an hour. He then tells the mysterious Simpledoria to wipe his feet and closed the door. The problem with this is that there was no one in sight, the man had talked to no one and no one entered the door. So did his finest house hold a crazy man or a wandering ghost? We soon find out.
Mr. Beasley is well known. Mr Beasley is respected. Mr. Beasley is a quiet gentleman who doesn't talk much. Mr. Beasley went to congress and never made a speech, but always got everything his district wanted. Mr. Beasley may run for governor. Mr. Beasley is the guardian of a young boy who has had a complication of infirmities that have kept him on his back most of his life, never knowing other children, never playing, with quite an imagination. And Mr. Beasley, when home with the child, goes around talking to people who aren't there. Mr. Beasley, when home with the child, plays yard games with people who aren't there. Mr. Beasley, when home with the child throws grand Christmas parties filled with people who aren't there. This story was lovely. I now have a great desire to go to a Christmas party with no one there but Mr. Beasley, and the servants, and a little crippled boy with an imagination, and any of those people who figured out what was going on and went to the party with me. This one I'll read again.
We begin with Mr. Beasley, poor Mr. Beasley. Okay, that's not quite right, we begin with our narrator walking past Mr. Beasley's home at 4:00 in the morning after his first night's work at the "Wainwright Morning Dispatch". The days when you could still buy a newspaper I guess. Around here you can still get a newspaper, you still pay for a subscription, the only problem I have with this is it is only online. Anyway, his first night is over and he is on his way home, which is a boarding house run by Mrs. Apperthwaite. Next door is "the house", the finest house in Wainwright, a big, old fashioned brick house, painted brown and very plain, set away from the street among splendid forest trees. It's a large house that looked not like a mansion but a home. If you went inside it would be sure to have hearty, old fashioned people living there who would welcome you merrily. A boisterous family, grandfather, grandmother, parent, aunts, uncles, children, on and on, special dinners, game playing....or not.
As he stands in front of the house thinking all these wonderful thoughts a window opens and a man looked out and whistled loudly. Before he knew what to do the man called for Simpledoria, and followed that with "Why there you are!" then telling someone in the room that Simpledoria is right underneath the window and he would bring him right up. When he opened the door neither boy, dog or cat was in sight, but the man calls for Simpledoria telling him he may have caught his death of cold roving out at such an hour. He then tells the mysterious Simpledoria to wipe his feet and closed the door. The problem with this is that there was no one in sight, the man had talked to no one and no one entered the door. So did his finest house hold a crazy man or a wandering ghost? We soon find out.
Mr. Beasley is well known. Mr Beasley is respected. Mr. Beasley is a quiet gentleman who doesn't talk much. Mr. Beasley went to congress and never made a speech, but always got everything his district wanted. Mr. Beasley may run for governor. Mr. Beasley is the guardian of a young boy who has had a complication of infirmities that have kept him on his back most of his life, never knowing other children, never playing, with quite an imagination. And Mr. Beasley, when home with the child, goes around talking to people who aren't there. Mr. Beasley, when home with the child, plays yard games with people who aren't there. Mr. Beasley, when home with the child throws grand Christmas parties filled with people who aren't there. This story was lovely. I now have a great desire to go to a Christmas party with no one there but Mr. Beasley, and the servants, and a little crippled boy with an imagination, and any of those people who figured out what was going on and went to the party with me. This one I'll read again.
August 19, 2020
5 stars & 5/10 hearts. This is a hilarious and very sweet story. I loved seeing how the grown men played along with and humoured little Hamilton <33 and it was certainly very funny at times!! There was a few mentions of smoking, a few euphemisms, and absolutely no mention of Christ, but I still very much enjoy this story. I love David Beasley—he is such a nice man! And the ending is perfect. <3
A Favourite Quote: “Yet there was a gayety in this eager gale; the crowds pressed anxiously, yet happily, up and down the street in their generous search for things to give away. It was not the rich who struggled through the storm to-night; these were people who carried their own bundles home. You saw them: toilers and savers, tired mothers and fathers, worn with the grinding thrift of all the year, but now for this one night careless of how hard-saved the money, reckless of everything but the joy of giving it to bring the children joy on the one great to-morrow.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “‘...of all the idiotically romantic girls—‘
“‘But she’s a teacher,’ I interrupted, ‘of mathematics.’
“‘Yes.’ She nodded wisely. ‘I always thought that explained it: the romance is a reaction from the algebra. I never knew a person connected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn’t have a crazy streak in ‘em SOMEwhere. They’ve got to blow off steam and be foolish to make up for putting in so much of their time at hard sense.’”
A Favourite Quote: “Yet there was a gayety in this eager gale; the crowds pressed anxiously, yet happily, up and down the street in their generous search for things to give away. It was not the rich who struggled through the storm to-night; these were people who carried their own bundles home. You saw them: toilers and savers, tired mothers and fathers, worn with the grinding thrift of all the year, but now for this one night careless of how hard-saved the money, reckless of everything but the joy of giving it to bring the children joy on the one great to-morrow.”
A Favourite Humorous Quote: “‘...of all the idiotically romantic girls—‘
“‘But she’s a teacher,’ I interrupted, ‘of mathematics.’
“‘Yes.’ She nodded wisely. ‘I always thought that explained it: the romance is a reaction from the algebra. I never knew a person connected with mathematics or astronomy or statistics, or any of those exact things, who didn’t have a crazy streak in ‘em SOMEwhere. They’ve got to blow off steam and be foolish to make up for putting in so much of their time at hard sense.’”
December 15, 2024
David Beasley is having a Christmas Party. Have you been invited?
None of the townspeople seem to have an invite, yet the house is lit from the cellar to the roof and they are setting up for a lively quadrille.
Christmas Eve is the climax of this Wainwright tale. When all is said and done you might need your tissues. I did!
As promised there is a character much like Tiny Tim and also is a blessing to all who know him. I have been wanting to read some Booth Tarkington and this was just perfect.
I got my copy from Amazon for my Kindle for just $.99.
None of the townspeople seem to have an invite, yet the house is lit from the cellar to the roof and they are setting up for a lively quadrille.
Christmas Eve is the climax of this Wainwright tale. When all is said and done you might need your tissues. I did!
As promised there is a character much like Tiny Tim and also is a blessing to all who know him. I have been wanting to read some Booth Tarkington and this was just perfect.
I got my copy from Amazon for my Kindle for just $.99.
January 2, 2022
An unusual little story about a man who appears to his neighbours to be odd, if not flat out crazy, but in the end turns out to be the best, and the sanest, of them all. A Christmas tale about how things are not always what they seem. It's worth reading and is available free at Project Gutenburg.
April 27, 2023
This heartwarming Christmas tale is somewhat reminiscent of Dickens, right down to a Tiny Tim-like character. A bit of a mystery and a bit of a romance add to its enjoyment. It does reflect the American culture of the early 1900s in its speech and ideas. Still, it’s a nice folksy tale, and perfect for any age or time of year.
January 12, 2020
Note to self: David Beasley cares for a young boy who is ill. Several twists and turns ending in a Christmas party where the man “of no imagination “ proves he has more than most. The woman that left him returns to join the party.
December 19, 2017
Nice short read. Not really much of a Christmas theme, but a very heart-warming story
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December 4, 2017An quick read about helping people around you instead of grand delusions of saving the world.
This is the December book for The Fleming Foundation and will be discussed at our Christmas Party.
This is the December book for The Fleming Foundation and will be discussed at our Christmas Party.
December 14, 2019
An interesting story about how a child can change how adults act and feel towards each other.
April 1, 2020
Mr. Beasley wass such a delight. What a charming short read this was.
December 8, 2020
I didn't really follow this all that much. It was kind of boring, kind of racist (though of no fault of its own, if you consider when it was published), and it was only kind of Christmassy.
December 11, 2020
Lovely story and writing
It's a lovely story with good writing. It is ruined a bit by the racism of the time. Because of that, it is difficult to recommend.
It's a lovely story with good writing. It is ruined a bit by the racism of the time. Because of that, it is difficult to recommend.
December 28, 2020
Not really a book but a delightful Christmas story in the Dickens tradition
December 5, 2021
Definitely a book of it's time with racial references that are no longer appropriate.
December 5, 2023
A nice story for the Christmas season.
December 24, 2023
Wonderful story for the holidays.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews