A01=Carl Dawson
A01=Susan Goodman
american authors
american imperialism
american letters
american literature
atlantic monthly
Author_Carl Dawson
Author_Susan Goodman
biography
Category=DNBL
Category=DS
Category=DSBF
Category=DSK
civil war
classics
edmund gosse
emily dickinson
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
gender
greed
henry james
hg wells
industry
journalism
justice
labor
lincoln
literary criticism
literary movement
literature
naturalism
nonfiction
ohio
paul dunbar
political corruption
poverty
progressive era
realism
regionalism
robber barons
sarah orne jewett
social change
social justice
stephen crane
twain
wealth
william dean howells
Product details
- ISBN 9780520238961
- Weight: 953g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 01 May 2005
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Possibly the most influential figure in the history of American letters, William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was, among other things, a leading novelist in the realist tradition, a formative influence on many of America's finest writers, and an outspoken opponent of social injustice. This biography, the first comprehensive work on Howells in fifty years, enters the consciousness of the man and his times, revealing a complicated and painfully honest figure who came of age in an era of political corruption, industrial greed, and American imperialism. Written with verve and originality in a highly absorbing style, it brings alive for a new generation a literary and cultural pioneer who played a key role in creating the American artistic ethos. "William Dean Howells" traces the writer's life from his boyhood in Ohio before the Civil War, to his consularship in Italy under President Lincoln, to his rise as editor of "Atlantic Monthly". It looks at his writing, which included novels, poems, plays, children's books, and criticism.
Howells had many powerful friendships among the literati of his day; and here we find an especially rich examination of the relationship between Howells and Mark Twain. Howells was, as Twain called him, 'the boss' of literary critics - his support almost single-handedly made the careers of many writers, including African Americans like Paul Dunbar and women like Sarah Orne Jewett. Showcasing many noteworthy personalities - Henry James, Edmund Gosse, H. G. Wells, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, and many others - "William Dean Howells" portrays a man who stood at the center of American literature through the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Susan Goodman, Professor of English and H. Fletcher Brown Chair of Humanities at the University of Delaware, is author of Civil Wars: American Novelists and Manners, 1880-1940 (2003) and Ellen Glasgow: A Biography (2003), among other books. Carl Dawson, Professor of English at the University of Delaware, is author of Living Backwards: A Transatlantic Memoir (1995), Lafcadio Hearn and the Vision of Japan (1992), and other books.
