William Dean Howells A Writer’s Life

Possibly one of 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. This biography traces the writer's life from his boyhood in Ohio, to his consularship in Italy under President Lincoln, to his rise as editor of "Atlantic Monthly".

“I found this book hard to put down. Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson have written a highly readable, thoroughly researched, and well-balanced life of a major literary figure. Howells really comes alive for us in these pages.”—Robert Richardson, Jr., author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire and Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind

“Behind the public image of the this man of letters, Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson have shown William Dean Howells to have been a complicated and painfully honest man in an era of political corruption, industrial greed, and American imperialism. This biography is a major accomplishment, massive in scope and engaging in its narrative. A terrific read.”—Jerome Loving, author of The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser and Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself

“ William Dean Howells: A Writer’s Life will be one of the most important literary biographies in years.”—Linda Wagner-Martin, author of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald: An American Woman's Life

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.