), The Encyclopedia of Social Reforms. His short story "Christmas Every Day" -- which is featured in our collection of Christmas Stories -- was widely read in his day and his novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is still read in high school and college classrooms as an exemplar of the genre of Realism. Howells is placed in the context of his time in Larzer Ziff's excellent The American 1890s (1966). and then the editor (1871-1881) of the Atlantic Monthly, a post William Dean Howells (1837-1920), author, editor, and critic, was born on 1 March 1837 in Martinsville, now Martin's Ferry, Ohio, the second son of eight children born to Mary Dean Howells and William Cooper Howells, a printer and publisher. Adam Gopnik. Howells is always more deferential than didactic, and the difficulties of human relationships are intentionally left unresolved. if (document.selecter.select1.options[document.selecter.select1.selectedIndex].value != "none") { Cook, Don Lewis, William Dean Howells: the Kittery years, Kittery Point, Me. of the Atlantic ocean debating the merits of realistic and romantic fiction. He and his wife, Deborah Fallows, are the authors of the national best seller Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America(2018). [11] He returned there annually until Elinor's death when he left the house to his son and family and moved to a house in York Harbor. Edwin H. Cady's The Road to Realism (1956) and The Realist at War (1958) together constitute the best biography of Howells. No active discussions on Howells found. Any one who takes the trouble to examine the pages of the Atlantic Index will see how far his work outnumbers in titles that of all other contributors, and the range of his work was great. Born in 1837 in Martinsville, Ohio, William Dean Howells was the second son of eight children. Elinor Gertrude Mead, whom Howells will marry in 1862, is born. Once again personal dilemmas are seen as symptoms of the rapid displacement of older social and religious stabilities by opportunism and commercial progress. 11 ratings1 review. But within its first decade, the magazine had hired an ambitious young assistant editor, William Dean Howells, who was proud of his origins beyond the Alleghenieshis shorthand for the rest of the country at the time. . He was the initiator of the school of American realists, and he had little sympathy with any other type of fiction. . ." Characteristically, Howells is opposed to exaggeration in the interest of discovering how people, despite the crises that beset them, manage to find their way. The heroine of Annie Kilburn (1888) returns to her Massachusetts home after eleven years abroad and finds a once-quiet village rapidly turning into a sprawling factory town with paved streets, electric lights, and a department store. Du Bois against the spread of Jim Crow laws and racist violence. Following Valds, Howells urges that artists need to learn how to interest the reader with the ordinary events of life, and with the portrayal of characters truly human (317). The democratic strain of Howells theory of realism is taken in part from the Spanish writer Palacio Valds, and appears to be inspired also by insights from Emerson and George Eliot. Their Wedding Journey (1872) and A Chance Acquaintance (1873) were his first realistic novels of uneventful middle-class life. Link, Arthur Stanley and William A. TheirPrivacy Policy & Terms of Useapply to your use of this service. In 1886 Howells had begun the regular review column, "Editor's Study, " in Harper's. The Sleeping Car, and Other Farces. . Awarded the post of From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely recognized as Americas literary canon. Henry James, (born April 15, 1843, New York, New York, U.S.died February 28, 1916, London, England), American novelist and, as a naturalized English citizen from 1915, a great figure in the transatlantic culture. The truth alone, says Howells, can exalt and purify men (326). April Hopes (1887) presents Alice Pasmer, the only daughter of parents whose dwindling investments have forced their return from Europe to New England. William Dean Howells Introduction Criticism Omissions? He became a personal friend to many of them, including Henry Adams, William James, Henry James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.[6]. Bliss (ed. World Encyclopedia. Howells was honest with everyone, most of all with himself. In the spirit of this mission, Howells admonishes: let fiction cease to lie about life; let it portray men and women as they are, actuated by the motives and the passions in the measure we all know . William Dean Howells - New York Review Books He served as assistant editor until 1871 and as editor in chief to 1881. It was novel, it was quaint, it was filled with curious, unexpected betrayals of human nature, but it was above all real, actual, a thing to be touched and as it were fondled by hands that were deft by nature and were quickly becoming more skilful by use. First, the graceful sketch which was hardly more than a leaf out of his note-book; then the blending of travel with character-drawing, as in A Chance Acquaintance and Their Wedding Journey, and later stories of people who moved about and thus found the incidents which the author had not to invent, as in The Lady of the Aroostook. His deeply shaken social faith is reflected in the novels of his New York period, such as the strongly pro-labour Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), generally considered his finest work, which dramatizes the teeming, competitive life of New York, where a representative group of characters try to establish a magazine. Bercovitch, Sacvan and Cyrus R. K. Patell. He presented his ideas of a good society, essentially socialistic and libertarian, in the long tale A Traveler from Altruria (1894). William Dean Howells: Seven Novels 18751888 (two volumes), Why read third- or fourth-rate fiction just to be entertained, when you can be entertained and enlightened by a wise master of fiction who knew what the world was about as well as pretty nearly any writer of his time in America?The Tampa Tribune-Times, Cultural panic and overwhelming change: Richard White looks back on Americas first Gilded Age, Mark Twain and William Dean Howells: the friendship that transformed American literature. After leaving Venice, Howells became first the assistant editor (1866-71) The old life embedded in this historic country became the book whose leaves he turned, but he looked with the greatest interest and most sympathetic scrutiny on that which passed before his eyes. William D. Howells - Ohio History Central Born: Albany, New York, 16 January 1928. Venetian Life. [24][25][26] He was, however, not a Marxist. . Hence this is the supreme test of any work of the imagination: Is it true? Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. 29 Jun. document.write('Membership'); As he himself later acknowledges, Howells theory of realism is democratic in several senses. Thus it was that Italy and Venice in particular afforded him at once the greatest delight and also the surest test of his growing power. William Dean Howells, March 1, 1837, Martins Ferry, Ohio, the U.S. to May 11, 1920, New York City, is writer and critic, the pioneer of nineteenth-century American letters, the hero of scholarly authenticity, and the dear companion and guide of Mark Twain and Henry James. document.write('Howells-L List'); 1898, Bronze relief Reminiscences, 1900. With contributions from donors, Library of America preserves and celebrates a vital part of our cultural heritage for generations to come. By the mid-1850s, he was editor of the Ohio State Journal, . The literary situation in Howells's America is well delineated in his Literary Friends and Acquaintance (1900). . Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Frank Norris, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Henry James | Novelist, Short Story Writer, Critic | Britannica William Dean Howells (/halz/; March 1, 1837 May 11, 1920) was an American realist novelist, literary critic, and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". with race (An Imperative Duty, 1892), the problems of labor (Annie While he was writing the book in 1886, a bomb exploded during a political meeting in Chicago's Haymarket. He went to the state Capitol to report the proceedings of the legislature, and before he was twenty-two had become news editor of the State Journal of Columbus, Ohio. (June 29, 2023). Howells was shocked and took a leading part in a national campaign for justice for the unpopular anarchists, but justice was denied. Meanwhile, he taught himself languages, becoming well read in German, Spanish, and English classics, and began contributing poems to The Atlantic Monthly. Howells's relation with Twain has given rise to some controversy; hostile critics claimed that he censored or bowdlerized the works of his exuberant friend. and William Dean Howells | American author and critic | Britannica Worldly Wisdom." Howells died in his sleep shortly after midnight on May 11, 1920,[16] and was buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For the first time in publishing history, this comprehensive eBook presents Howells' complete works, with numerous . Nationality: American. William Dean Howells (1837-1920), the author of thirty-six novels, twelve books of travel, and many short stories, articles, essays, and poems, grew up in Martin's Ferry, Ohio, the son of a printer with strong antislavery and egalitarian beliefs. Naturally now he concentrated his attention on the Italian language and literature, but after all he was not made for a microscopic or encyclopaedic scholar, least of all for a pedant. our Sonnet-A-Day Newsletter and read them all, one at a time. a type. Such a grasshopper, formulated by generations of previous artists, represents a cultivation of the ideal, the ideal grasshopper through the lens of which the real one must be viewed. There were casualties, and a group of anarchists was chargedfalsely, it appearedwith murder. Subscribers can purchase the slipcased edition by signing in to their accounts. In the impressive novella An Imperative Duty (1892), he argued eloquently against racism at a moment when his readers were turning rapidly toward white supremacist doctrines. Volume II: 18861869, ed. In his voluminous works as a best-selling novelist, a literary critic, an editor, and a civic crusader, he expressed an ever-keener awareness that the American idea could be realized only through ongoing struggle for social, economic, regional, racial, and gender-based inclusion and justice. of a man from Leatherwood Creek, Ohio, who convinces the people there that Mr. Howells began to write letters home which were printed in the Boston Daily Advertiser, and grew easily into a book which still remains in the minds of many of his readers the freshest of all his writings, Venetian Life. (Public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Interviews Cultural panic and overwhelming change: Richard White looks back on America's first Gilded Age News His introduction to literature was in the stirring days just before the war for the Union, and he had a generous enthusiasm for the great principles which were then at stake. Where Howells integrates these insights from various writers and makes them speak through his own voice is in his insistence on the political significance of their democratic sentiment. In 1869, he met Mark Twain with whom he formed a longtime friendship. 1863), John Mead (b. Harrison wrote a series of articles for The Atlantic Monthly during the 1870s on the lives of ordinary Americans. 1905. This Library of America series edition is printed on acid-free paper and features Smyth-sewn binding, a full cloth cover, and a ribbon marker. . Yet Howells, true to his democratic aesthetics, rejects the concept of genius outright, as a mischievous superstition aimed at mystifying the artistic process. A good many years later, after returning to the country of his affection, he wrote a third book of a similar character under the title of Tuscan Cities. William Dean Howells: Seven Novels 1875-1888 (two volumes) | Library of What he was looking for in literature, though he scarcely so stated it to himself at the time, was human life, and it was this first-hand acquaintance he was acquiring with life in another circumstance that constituted his real training in literature. Howells laments the custom of encouraging young artists to form their observations not upon life but upon the perceptions of previous masters. William Dean Howells, (born March 1, 1837, Martins Ferry, Ohio, U.S.died May 11, 1920, New York City), U.S. novelist and critic, the dean of late 19th-century American letters, the champion of literary realism, and the close friend and adviser of Mark Twain and Henry James. York City as seen through the eyes of Basil and Isabel March, the protagonists A close friend of Mark Twain and Henry James, he defended them against the attacks of their more genteel and nationalistic compatriots, and he was also sympathetic to the realistic starkness and radicalism of younger writers like Frank Norris and Stephen Crane. Do not republish it without permission. real America. There are, remarked a contemporary reviewer, thousands of Silas Laphams throughout the United States, and present-day readers might agree that there still are. His chief fictional work was The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), and his subsequent novels, such as A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890) and The World of Chance (1893), reflect his move toward both socialism and social realism, whereby he conducted a critique of American capitalism and imperialism. The second volume in this set contains three of Howellss most revered novels.