Main Street
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- Synopsis
-
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
"Main Street" is the 1920 novel by Sinclair Lewis that tells the story of Carol Milford, a liberal, free-spirited young woman from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Carol meets and marries Will Kennicott, a doctor who convinces her to move back to his small hometown of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. While there, Carol finds the smug conservatism of the town objectionable and sets out to try and make the town a little more progressive, with little effectiveness. A satirical gem, "Main Street" is Sinclair Lewis' classic portrait of small town midwestern American life.
With Commentary by E. M. Forster, Dorothy Parker,H. L. Mencken, Lewis Mumford, Rebecca West,Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Cowley, Alfred Kazin, Constance Rourke, and Mark Schorer
"Main Street is the climax of civilization," Sinclair Lewis declared with a typical blend of seriousness and irony. "That this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters." Main Street, the story of an idealistic young woman's attempts to reform her small town, brought Lewis immediate acclaim when it was published in 1920. It remains one of the essential texts of the American scene. Lewis Mumford observed: "In Main Street an American had at last written of our life with something of the intellectual rigor and critical detachment that had seemed so cruel and unjustified [in Charles Dickens and Matthew Arnold]. Young people had grown up in this environment, suffocated, stultified, helpless, but unable to find any reason for their spiritual discomfort. Mr. Lewis released them."
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951), was born in Sauk Centre, Minne-sota, and graduated from Yale in 1907; in 1930 he became the first American recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Main Street (1920) was his first critical and commercial success. Lewis's other noted books include Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), Dodsworth (1929), and It Can't Happen Here (1935).
- Copyright:
- 1999
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9780679641674
- Related ISBNs:
- 9780375753145
- Publisher:
- Random House Publishing Group
- Date of Addition:
- 12/11/14
- Copyrighted By:
- Random House, Inc.
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Literature and Fiction
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.