Showing results by author "Sinclair Lewis" in All Categories

Join Mike Vendetti, also known as Miketheauctioneer, as he brings to life Sinclair Lewis’ second novel, Trail of the Hawk. Although it didnt achieve the immediate acclaim of his later masterpieces like Babbitt and Elmer Gantry, this work showcases Lewis unique style and remarkable talent. Follow the journey of Carl Ericson, affectionately known as The Hawk, the son of Norwegian immigrants born at the close of the 19th century. Experience his adventurous youth as he escapes with Gertie Cowels, the girl from the affluent part of town, only to be rescued by Bone Stillman, a backwoods ...

Welcome to The Sinclair Lewis Library - a dignified little institution devoted to the careful airing of American ambition, middle-class certainty, and the curious art of taking oneself very seriously. Here, the streets are tidy, the rhetoric is polished, and the human comedy is forever peeking through the curtains. Each episode presents a full reading from Lewis’s novels, where boosters boast, reformers reform, and respectable citizens discover (sometimes to their alarm) that respectability can be the strangest costume of all.Settle in as boardrooms, parlors, laboratories, and Main Streets ...

A greedy, philandering Baptist minister, Elmer Gantry turns to evangelism and becomes the leader of a large Methodist congregation. Often exposed as a fraud, he is never fully discredited. Elmer Gantry is considered a landmark American novel and one of the most penetrating studies of hypocrisy in modern literature. It portrays the evangelistic activity that was common in 1920s America as well as attitudes toward it.

Doremus Jessup, a newspaper editor, is dismayed to find that many of the people he knows support presidential candidate Berzelius Windrip. The suspiciously fascist Windrip is offering to save the nation from sex, crime, welfare cheats, and a liberal press. But after Windrip wins the election, dissent soon becomes dangerous for Jessup. Windrip forcibly gains control of Congress and the Supreme Court and, with the aid of his personal paramilitary storm troopers, turns the United States into a totalitarian state.

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American novelist and playwright who, in 1930, became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. His last distinctive pulp novel, The Innocents, follows a longtime married couple as they vacation away from their home in New York City and contemplate starting a business.

Widely hailed as a milestone in American literature, Sinclair Lewis' Main Street vividly describes a country on the verge of massive change, with traditional values being threatened by progress. The novel's heroine, Carol Milford, is a highly educated, ambitious woman who plans to join a newly enlightened society. But after marrying a small-town doctor, she finds herself trapped in the role of a dutiful wife. Carol's desires for social change conflict with the security of her comfortable married life, as she struggles to understand the cost of conformity...and rebellion. As relevant today as it was upon its 1920 publication, Main Street is both a masterful piece of writing and a fascinating microcosm of America's social evolution.

Martin Arrowsmith is fascinated by science and medicine. As a boy, he immerses himself in Gray’s Anatomy. In medical school, he soaks up knowledge from his mentor, a renowned bacteriologist. But soon he is urged to focus on politics and promotions rather than his research. Even as Martin progresses from doctor to public health official and noted pathologist, he still yearns to devote his time to pure science.

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.

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was an American novelist and playwright who, in 1930, became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for literature. The Job is one of his earliest novels. Concerning the exploits of a 1920s career woman, it is one of the first novels about feminism and is considered one of the stepping stones towards Lewis' success.

Dive into the captivating tale of Elmer Gantry, where a young, charming, yet morally bankrupt salesman finds himself swept up in the world of evangelism. As Gantry navigates the fervent revivalist circuit, he encounters Sister Sharon Falconer, an inspiring lay preacher, and Lulu Bains, an old acquaintance turned prostitute. This gripping novel delves deep into themes of hypocrisy, greed, and the seductive power of fame. A bestseller at its release, it also inspired a remarkable 1960 film featuring Burt Lancaster as the enigmatic Gantry. - Summary by William Jones

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis is a satirical novel that depicts the rise of a fascist government in the United States, exploring themes of power, democracy, and individual freedom. Through the story of a demagogic politician who becomes president, Lewis warns against the fragility of democracy and the dangers of authoritarianism. The novel is a critical examination of American society and politics in the 1930s, highlighting the potential for tyranny even in a democratic nation.

On the surface, everything is all right with Babbitt’s world of the solid, successful businessman. But in reality, George F. Babbitt is a lonely, middle-aged man. He doesn’t understand his family, has an unsuccessful attempt at an affair, and is almost financially ruined when he dares to voice sympathy for some striking workers. Babbitt finds that his only safety lies deep in the fold of those who play it safe. He is a man who has added a new word to our language: a “Babbitt,” meaning someone who conforms unthinkingly, a sheep.

In Main Street, we follow the journey of Carol Milford, a spirited and progressive young woman from the vibrant city of Minneapolis. After marrying Will Kennicott, a devoted doctor with small-town roots, she relocates to the conservative and unrefined Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. Faced with the towns physical and cultural limitations, Carols initial shock transforms into a fierce determination to bring about change and challenge the status quo. Will she succeed in her quest to reshape her new home, or will the towns traditions prove too strong?

With his breathtaking social insight and his graceful sentences, Sinclair Lewis—a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner—stands out as one of the most important American writers of the 20th century. At turns lyrically soul-searching and scathing in its honesty, Babbitt captures the essence of the 1920s while remaining a timeless piece of literature. Babbitt, the ultimate conformist and social climber, seeks power in his community and self-esteem from others. Outwardly, he is the ultimate “big booster,” and he toes the company line with “zip and zowie.”

A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.

A blistering rebuke of religious hypocrisy, Elmer Gantry is the story of a charismatic and manipulative social climber who rises to power within his church, despite his insincerity. Though he preaches against immorality and temptation, Reverend Dr Elmer Gantry can’t seem to give up his own vices, and he leaves a trail of broken people behind him in his pursuit of pleasure and power, betraying anybody and doing anything to get ahead.

At thirty-four, Mr. Wrenn is a humble sales-entry clerk at the Souvenir Company, often found hunched over bills and columns of figures in his inconspicuous blue ready-made suits. Despite his meek demeanor and small, unsuccessful mustache, Mr. Wrenn possesses a vibrant inner life fueled by his imagination. When he unexpectedly inherits a modest sum, he feels compelled to break free from his routine and embark on a journey of self-discovery. What follows is a series of adventures that reveal life to be far more captivating than he ever envisioned... (Introduction by Don Jenkins)

Throughout the long centuries of human history is the want, and the need, to share information, to exchange ideas and for that knowledge and experience, for curiosity and learning, to be the basis of a civil society. In this volume we offer up a small selection of talents from the literary landscape of the North American male author whose time has now come again.

An early 20th century American story written in the Theodore Dreiser style of each word and chapter building on the previous ones, telling the saga of evangelical religion & people with irony throughout.

Meet Sam Dodsworth, an amiable 50-year-old millionaire and "American Captain of Industry, believing in the Republican Party, high tariffs, and, so long as they did not annoy him personally, in Prohibition and the Episcopal Church". Dodsworth runs an auto manufacturing firm, but his beautiful wife, Fran, obsessed with the notion that she is growing old, persuades him to sell his interest in the company and take her to Europe.