Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

The lonely predicament of Carol Kennicott, caught between her desires for social reform and individual happiness, reflects the position in which America's turn-of-the-century, "emancipated woman" found herself.

An allegory of exile and return, Main Street attacks the complacency and ingrown mores of those who resist change, who are under the illusion that they have chosen their tradition.

Maxwell Geismar lauded this work as "a remarkable diary of the middle class mind in America." Its author was hailed by John Galsworthy for having written ""a most searching and excellent piece of work; a feather in the cap of literature.""

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Harry Sinclair Lewis, the son of a country doctor, was born in Sauk Center, Minnesota, in 1885. His childhood and early youth were spent in the Middle West and later he attended Yale University, where he was editor of the literary magazine. After being graduated in 1907, he went to New York, tried free-lance work for a time and then worked in a variety of editorial positions in various places from the East Coast to California. he was able to give this work up after a few of his stories had appeared in magazines and his first novel Our Mr. Wren 1914, had been published.

However, Main Street was his first really successful novel in 1920 and his reputation was enhanced by the publication of Babbitt in 1922.

Lewis was awarded a Pulizter Prize for Arrowsmith in 1925 but refused to accept the honor. However, he accepted the Nobel Prize which was awarded to him in 1930 and went to Stockholm to receive it formally.

During the last part of his life he spent a great deal of time in Europe and continued to write both novels and plays. In 1950, after completing his last novel World So Wide he intended to take an extended tour. He became ill, however, and was forced to settle in Rome, where he spent months working on his poems. He died there in 1951.

 

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More from Sinclair Lewis

Available in Paperback
• Babbitt
• Main Street

 

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