in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).In the present investigation, a simple and facile synthesis of a series of 4-phenylquinoline-fused pyrrolidin-2-ones, namely, 9-phenyl-2-substituted-2,3-dihydro-1H-pyrrolo[3,4-b]quinolin-1-ones is described, involving the tandem intermolecular C-N bond formation reaction between readily available ethyl 2-(chloromethyl)-4-phenylquinoline-3-carboxylate and various amines followed by in situ intramolecular C-N bond cyclization process in the presence of EtOH-AcOH (v/v, 10:1) solvent system as the reaction medium.