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Law Blog Obituary: Lawyer and Novelist Louis Auchincloss

By Ashby Jones

Some sad news to report today out of Gotham. Louis Auchincloss, one of the few people we can think of who made careers both in writing fiction and in practicing law*, died Tuesday night in Manhattan. He was 92. Click here for the NYT obituary.

Auchincloss was, according to the NYT, considered chiefly “as one of America's pre-eminent novelists of manners and a portraitist of the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant upper crust.” The NYT obit continues:

Admirers like Mr. Vidal portrayed Mr. Auchincloss as the lonely keeper of a flame who upheld the moral visions, writing techniques and acute social observations of William Dean Howells, Henry James, Edith Wharton and J. P. Marquand.

Auchincloss attended the Bovee School on Fifth Avenue and in 1929 entered the Groton School in Massachusetts. During his junior year at Yale, he completed a novel modeled on "Madame Bovary," about a New York socialite. The book was rejected by Scribners, and Auchincloss abruptly changed directions. He left Yale before his senior year and entered the University of Virginia law school.

After graduation he joined Sullivan & Cromwell. During his naval service in World War II, he wrote another novel, called “The Indifferent Children,” and this time had better luck. It was published in 1947.

By this time, he had committed to the idea that he could do both practice law and keep writing. His secret? Using snatches of time whenever he could. "I trained myself to do that. I could write, sitting in surrogate's court, answering calendar call. There is a lot of waiting in the practice of law."

In 1951, he resigned from S&C and wrote full time. Three years later he returned to the law, joining Hawkins, Delafield & Wood, a Wall Street firm specializing in bonds. He became a partner in trusts and estates, a white-shoe specialty that he pursued until he retired in 1987.

Some of Auchincloss’s better-known works include “The Rector of Justin” (1964), “The Embezzler” (1966), and “Honorable Men” (1986).

* Other lawyers who’ve made good careers both practicing law and writing fiction include Louis Begley and Scott Turow. We’re sure there are others, and we’ll sure you’ll help tell us who they are, LBers.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).