Percy Marks

Biography

Percy Marks (1891–1956) was an American novelist and English professor whose novel The Plastic Age (1924) caused a national sensation with its frank portrayal of college life in the Jazz Age. Born in Coventry, Connecticut, Marks studied at Brown University and Harvard before becoming an English professor at Brown. Drawing on his observations of campus life, he wrote The Plastic Age, a novel depicting the drinking, petting, partying, and anti-intellectualism of 1920s college students. The book’s candid treatment of sexual behavior and campus culture made it a bestseller and a lightning rod for controversy—Marks was forced to resign from Brown, though the connection between his novel and the university was never officially acknowledged. The Plastic Age was adapted into a 1925 film starring Clara Bow in one of her first major roles. Marks wrote several more novels, including Martha (1925) and A Tree Grown Straight (1936), but none matched the impact of his debut. He later taught at various universities and continued writing fiction and criticism.