main street sinclair lewis first edition

Ostensibly, Main Street is in a way about every Main Street in America, viewed through the lens of one character, Carol Kendicott, on one fictional town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. The writing is certainly personal & engaging & Ms. What Are Your Assumptions About Yourself & Others The committee, wrote: Main Street exemplifies Lewis’ “vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humour, new types of characters.'

In 1930, he became the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was finally awarded the Pulitzer in 1926 for 'Arrowsmith', but he turned it down - becoming the first writer to do so. In 1923, Lewis's 'Babbitt' was chosen, but again the committee was overruled by the Trustees. The Pulitzer Committee recommended Lewis for the Pulitzer for Main Street in 1921, but the Trustees of Colombia University overruled the jury. His portrayal of women, especially Carol, is surprisingly sensitive, and his depiction of marriage and the compromises expected of woman offer both insightful social commentary and convincing realism. Lewis’s intimate knowledge of small-town America and subtle characterizations make Main Street a compelling classic still surprisingly relevant today: the religious bigotry, racism, puritanical righteousness, and duplicitous business practices Lewis exposes are with us still. Scott Fitzgerald, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser.). Lewis was in the vanguard of a generation of American writers seeking realism to their work (Ernest Hemingway. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town, only to find her ideas met with distrust and derision, and herself becoming a pariah. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. The printers could not keep up with the orders, and for a while the publishers had to ration out copies to book-sellers.'Ī biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. According to biographer Mark Schorer, it 'was the most sensational event in 20th-century American publishing history, from the point of view both of sales and of public response. Published on October 23, 1920, Main Street was the first of Sinclair Lewis's great successes.

A new Afterword to the Audiobook by Dr.

A new Foreword by biographer Richard Lingeman.

Main street sinclair lewis first edition