Percy Marks was born in Covelo, California, on September 9, 1891. He received a Bachelor of Letters degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1912 and a Master of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1914. Over the next decade he served successively as supervisor of education at Tewksbury (Massachusetts) State Infirmary, and as instructor of English at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, and Brown University. In 1925 he gave up his teaching career in order to devote himself to writing and lecturing. Between 1925 and 1949 most of his major works were written. In the latter year he resumed teaching as instructor of English and literature at the University of Connecticut at Waterbury, a post he held until shortly before his death.
Marks wrote some twenty books, mostly novels, and contributed short stories and essays to several prominent American literary magazines. His major works include Martha, Lord of Himself, A Tree Grown Straight, And Points Beyond, The Days Are Fled, Between Two Autumns, Knave of Diamonds, Shade of Sycamore, Blair Marriman, The Craft of Writing, and his most famous novel, The Plastic Age.
During World War I, Marks served as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He was married to Margaret Ellen Gates in Gardena, California, on December 17, 1927; they had one daughter, Sally Jean. Percy Marks died in New Haven, Connecticut, on December 27, 1956.
For further biographical information, see the National Cyclopadeia of American Biography, Vol. 46, pp. 321-22, as well as folders 131-33 of this collection.
From the guide to the Percy Marks papers, 1900-1961 (inclusive), 1920-1940, (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
