William Dean Howells (1837-1920)
Biographical note
American realist author and literary critic.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890).
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
His poems were collected in 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills appeared in 1895. He was the founder of the school of American realists who derived through the Russians from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other form of fiction, although he was full of encouragement for new writers in whom he discovered a fresh note. It can hardly be doubted that his was the most influential work done in American fiction during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.
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Works
Travel
- Venetian Life [1866]
- Italian Journeys [1867]
- Suburban Sketches [1871]
- Tuscan Cities [1886]
- A Little Swiss Sojourn [1892]
- London Films [1906]
- Certain Delightful English Towns [1906]
- Roman Holidays and Others [1908]
- Seven English Cities [1909]
- Familiar Spanish Travels [1913] [ read | download ]
Reminiscences & Autobiography
- Literary Friends, complete
- My Mark Twain
Essays
- Criticism and Fiction
- Modern Italian Poets
- Henry James, Jr. [ read | print | download ]
- The Man of Letters as a Man of Business
- A Psychological Counter-current in Recent Fiction.
- Emile Zola [ read | print | download ]
- Literary Friends and Acquaintances
- Biographical
- My First Visit to New England
- First Impressions of Literary New York
- Roundabout to Boston
- Literary Boston As I Knew It
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
- The White Mr. Longfellow
- Studies of Lowell
- Cambridge Neighbors
- A Belated Guest
- My Mark Twain
- Literature and Life
- Man of Letters in Business
- Confessions of a Summer Colonist
- The Young Contributor
- Last Days in a Dutch Hotel
- Anomalies of the Short Story
- Spanish Prisoners of War
- American Literary Centers
- Standard Household Effect Co.
- Notes of a Vanished Summer
- Worries of a Winter Walk
- Summer Isles of Eden
- Wild Flowers of the Asphalt
- A Circus in the Suburbs
- A She Hamlet
- The Midnight Platoon
- The Beach at Rockaway
- Sawdust in the Arena
- At a Dime Museum
- American Literature in Exile
- The Horse Show
- The Problem of the Summer
- Aesthetic New York Fifty-odd Years Ago
- From New York into New England
- The Art of the Adsmith
- The Psychology of Plagiarism
- Puritanism in American Fiction
- The What and How in Art
- Politics in American Authors
- Storage
- "Floating down the River on the O-hi-o"
- "My Literary Passions"
- The Bookcase at Home
- Goldsmith
- Cervantes
- Irving
- First Fiction and Drama
- Longfellow's "Spanish Student"
- Scott
- Lighter Fancies
- Pope
- Various Preferences
- Uncle Tom's Cabin
- Ossian
- Shakespeare
- Ik Marvel
- Dickens
- Wordsworth, Lowell, Chaucer
- Macaulay.
- Critics and Reviews.
- A Non-literary Episode
- Thackeray
- "Lazarillo De Tormes"
- Curtis, Longfellow, Schlegel
- Tennyson
- Heine
- De Quincey, Goethe, Longfellow.
- George Eliot, Hawthorne, Goethe, Heine
- Charles Reade
- Dante
- Goldoni, Manzoni, D'azeglio
- "Pastor Fido," "Aminta," "Romola," "Yeast," "Paul Ferroll"
- Erckmann-chatrian, Bjorstjerne Bjornson
- Tourguenief, Auerbach
- Certain Preferences and Experiences
- Valdes, Galdos, Verga, Zola, Trollope, Hardy
- Tolstoy
- Criticism and Fiction
Novels
- Their Wedding Journey [1872]
- A Foregone Conclusion
- The Lady of the Aroostook [1879]
- Dr. Breen's Practice [1881]
- A Modern Instance [1882]
- The Rise of Silas Lapham [1885]
- Indian Summer
- The Minister's Charge [1886]
- April Hopes [1888]
- Annie Kilburn [1887/88]
- A Hazard of New Fortunes [1890]
- A Traveler from Altruria: Romance
- The Landlord At Lion's Head [1908]
- An Open-Eyed Conspiracy
- The Ragged Lady [1899]
- Their Silver Wedding Anniversary [1899]
- Silver Wedding Journey
- The Kentons [1902]
- Questionable Shapes [1903]
- Through the Eye of the Needle [1907]
- Fennel and Rue
- The Leatherwood God [1916]
Plays
- The Sleeping-Car
- The Garotters
- The Register
- The Parlor Car
- The Elevator
- The Albany Depot
- The Whole Family
- Short Stories and Essays
- The Entire March Family Trilogy
