Booth Tarkington, Blindness, Dictation, and the Durability of Style

When Booth Tarkington suffered from severe vision problems and temporary complete blindness in 1929, he began to dictate almost all of his literary works, a practice he continued even after regaining good eyesight in 1931. This submission investigates the possible effects of this change in mode of composition on Tarkington's style. The tentative conclusion is that there is almost no evidence of any effect, which suggests that authorial style can be quite durable in the face of a complete change in the way the author produces his text.