An American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." His works are known for their insightful and critical views of American capitalism and materialism between the wars. He is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H.L. Mencken wrote of him. In 1930, Lewis won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first writer from the United States to receive the award.
Includes an active table of contents so you can easily navigate to each book.
Babbitt- A satire of American values, the power of conformity, and the vacuity of American life.
Free Air - One of the earliest open roads tales, originally serialized for the Saturday Evening Post. Fashionable and single Clair Boltwood joines her father on a drive cross-country to Seattle with the hope that the long trip will help her avoid marrying her "sophisticated" New York beau.
The Innocents- If this were a ponderous work of realism, such as the author has attempted to write, and will doubtless essay again, it would be perilous to dedicate it to the splendid assembly of young British writers, lest the critics search for Influences and Imitations. But since this is a flagrant excursion, a tale for people who still read Dickens and clip out spring poetry and love old people and children, it may safely confess the writer's strident admiration for Compton Mackenzie, Hugh Walpole, Oliver Onions, D. H. Lawrence, J. D. Beresford, Gilbert Cannan, Patrick MacGill, and their peers, whose novels are the histories of our contemporaneous Golden Age. Nor may these be mentioned without a yet more enthusiastic tribute to their master and teacher (he probably abominates being called either a master or a teacher), H. G. Wells.
The Job- Shows with honesty and vision the struggle of a girl from a small town to find herself in the business world of New York. Some of the episodes of her unfortunate marriage may be considered too frank and sordid but they are not the main interest, while the whole story leaves one with more confidence in the women who are beginning to realize the possibilities of "the job."
Main Street- Carol Milford is a liberal, free-spirited young woman, reared in the metropolis of Minneapolis. She marries Will Kennicott, a doctor, who is a small-town boy at heart. When they marry, Will convinces her to live in his home-town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. Carol is appalled at the backwardness of Gopher Prairie. But her disdain for the town�s physical ugliness and smug conservatism compels her to reform it.
Our Mr Wrenn- A little New York clerk, full of dreams of travel, goes to London on a cattle steamer, has experiences with bohemianisms of a sort and returns joyfully to New York to find his real romance. Told with a true understanding and humor.
The Trail of the Hawk-
A truly lifelike chronicle of the fortunes of 'Widow Ericson's boy Carl,' of Joralemon, Minn., who becomes 'Hawk' Ericson, the daring aviator, and marries a very nice girl indeed. They had promised to find new horizons for each other, and when the resources of a New York flat in the way of horizons are exhausted, they sail for South America.
