Sinclair Lewis Popular Books

Sinclair Lewis Biography & Facts

Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first author from the United States (and the first from the Americas) 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." Lewis wrote six popular novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935). Several of his notable works were critical of American capitalism and materialism during the interwar period. Lewis is respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him, "[If] there was ever a novelist among us with an authentic call to the trade ... it is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds." Early life Lewis was born February 7, 1885, in the village of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, to Edwin J. Lewis, a physician of Welsh descent, and Emma Kermott Lewis. He had two older siblings, Fred (born 1875) and Claude (born 1878). His father was a stern disciplinarian, who had difficulty relating to his sensitive, unathletic third son. Lewis's mother died in 1891. The next year Edwin married Isabel Warner, who young Lewis apparently liked. Lewis began reading books while young, and kept a diary. Throughout his lonely boyhood, the ungainly child—tall, extremely thin, stricken with acne and somewhat pop-eyed—had trouble making friends and pined after local girls. At the age of 13, he ran away from home and unsuccessfully tried to become a drummer boy in the Spanish–American War. In late 1902, Lewis left home for a year at Oberlin Academy (the then-preparatory department of Oberlin College) to qualify for acceptance at Yale University. While at Oberlin, he developed a religious enthusiasm that waxed and waned for much of his remaining teenage years. Lewis later became an atheist. He entered Yale in 1903, but did not receive his bachelor's degree until 1908, taking time off to work at Helicon Home Colony, Upton Sinclair's cooperative-living colony in Englewood, New Jersey, and to travel to Panama. Lewis's undistinguished looks, country manners and seeming self-importance made it difficult for him to win and keep friends at Oberlin and Yale. He did make a few friends among the students and professors, some of whom recognized his promise as a writer. Career Lewis's earliest published creative work—romantic poetry and short sketches—appeared in the Yale Courant and the Yale Literary Magazine, of which he became an editor. After graduation Lewis moved from job to job and from place to place in an effort to make ends meet, writing fiction for publication and to chase away boredom. In the summer of 1908, Lewis worked as an editorial writer at a newspaper in Waterloo, Iowa. He moved to the Carmel-by-the-Sea writers' colony near Monterrey, California, in September 1908, to work for the MacGowan sisters and to meet poet George Sterling in person. He left Carmel after six months, moving to San Francisco where Sterling helped him get a job at the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. Lewis returned to Carmel in spring 1910 and met Jack London. While working for newspapers and publishing houses he developed a facility for turning out shallow, popular stories that were purchased by a variety of magazines. He also earned money by selling plots to London, including one for the latter's unfinished novel The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. Lewis's first published book was Hike and the Aeroplane, a Tom Swift-style potboiler that appeared in 1912 under the pseudonym Tom Graham. Sinclair Lewis's first serious novel, Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man, appeared in 1914, followed by The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life (1915) and The Job (1917). That same year also saw the publication of another potboiler, The Innocents: A Story for Lovers, an expanded version of a serial story that had originally appeared in Woman's Home Companion. Free Air, another refurbished serial story, was published in 1919. Commercial success Upon moving to Washington, D.C., Lewis devoted himself to writing. As early as 1916, he began taking notes for a realistic novel about small-town life. Work on that novel continued through mid-1920, when he completed Main Street, which was published on October 23, 1920. His biographer Mark Schorer wrote in 1961 that the phenomenal success of Main Street "was the most sensational event in twentieth-century American publishing history". Lewis's agent had the most optimistic projection of sales at 25,000 copies. In its first six months, Main Street sold 180,000 copies, and within a few years, sales were estimated at two million. Richard Lingeman wrote in 2002, "Main Street made [Lewis] rich—earning him about 3 million current dollars" (almost $5 million, as of 2022). Lewis followed up this first great success with Babbitt (1922), a novel that satirized the American commercial culture and boosterism. The story was set in the fictional Midwestern town of Zenith, Winnemac, a setting to which Lewis returned in future novels, including Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, Gideon Planish and Dodsworth. Lewis continued his success in the 1920s with Arrowsmith (1925), a novel about the challenges faced by an idealistic doctor. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, which Lewis declined, still upset that Main Street had not won the prize. It was adapted as a 1931 Hollywood film directed by John Ford and starring Ronald Colman which was nominated for four Academy Awards. Next Lewis published Elmer Gantry (1927), which depicted an evangelical minister as deeply hypocritical. The novel was denounced by many religious leaders and banned in some U.S. cities. It was adapted for the screen more than a generation later as the basis of the 1960 movie starring Burt Lancaster, who earned a Best Actor Oscar for his performance in the title role. The film won two more awards as well. Lewis next published Dodsworth (1929), a novel about the most affluent and successful members of American society. He portrayed them as leading essentially pointless lives in spite of great wealth and advantages. The book was adapted for the Broadway stage in 1934 by Sidney Howard, who also wrote the screenplay for the 1936 film version directed by William Wyler, which was a great success at the time. The film is still highly regarded; in 1990, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, and in 2005 Time magazine named it one of the "100 Best Movies" of the past 80 years. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Lewis wrote many short stories for a variety of magazines and publications. "Little Bear Bongo" (1930) is a tale about a bear cub who wants to escape the circus in search of a better life in the real world, first published in Cosmopolitan magazine. The story was acquired by Walt Disney Pict.... Discover the Sinclair Lewis popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Sinclair Lewis books.