Louis Auchincloss

A frequent writer for American Heritage, Louis Auchincloss was a lawyer, novelist, historian, and essayist. He is best known for his finely wrought novels exploring the private lives of America's East Coast patrician class (especially the world of Wall Street bankers, lawyers and stockbrokers). His dry, ironic works of fiction continued the tradition of Henry James and Edith Wharton.

Gore Vidal said, "Of all our novelists, Auchincloss is the only one who tells us how our rulers behave in their banks and their boardrooms, their law offices and their clubs.... Not since Dreiser has an American writer had so much to tell us about the role of money in our lives."

Auchincloss attended Yale University, where he was editor of the Yale Literary Magazine, and law school at the University of Virginia.

Articles by this Author

A Sargent Portrait, October/November 1986 | Vol. 37, No. 6

It took half a century for his critics to see his subjects as clearly as he did; but today he stands as America’s preeminent portraitist

Lord Bryce, April/May 1981 | Vol. 32, No. 3

Few men—foreign or native born—have ever understood us better than this infinitely curious, inveterate Visitor from England

The Long Life and Broad Mind of Mr. Justice Holmes, June/July 1978 | Vol. 29, No. 4

“Never Leave Me, Never Leave Me”, February 1970 | Vol. 21, No. 2

Images Of Elegant New York, October 1966 | Vol. 17, No. 6

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