William Dean Howells
1) London Films
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Howells wrote several captivating travel books, including Italian Journeys, Venetian Life, and Certain Delightful English Towns. Here, he turns his observant and sometimes critical eye to London, presenting a series of sketches of the city as if they were mental movies.
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One of the most influential authors of the late nineteenth century, and a former editor of the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine, William Dean Howells wrote more than fifty novels, as well as plays, memoirs, and poetry collections. Opposed to the sentimentalism, contrived heroism, and theatrical endings in fiction, he developed a literary style based on unvarnished realism. This unique genre is brilliantly depicted in A Modern Instance, a novel...
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Indian Summer is often considered William Dean Howells's best novel after The Rise of Silas Lapham. Mark Twain commended the novel by declaring to Howells, "You are really my only author," and Howells himself considered this tale about a middle-aged man's misdirected love for a widow's young ward as among his best character studies.
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This novel from popular nineteenth-century American author William Dean Howells features a visitor from a mysterious distant island known as Altruria. The contrast between the utopian island community and conditions in 1890s America provides remarkable insight into the social and cultural issues facing the country then -- and now. A must-read for fans of utopian fantasy and science fiction. As part of our mission to publish great works of literary...
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Basil and Isabel March first appeared in Howells's Their Wedding Journey, which followed the newly married couple as they traveled to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. Here, Howells returns to the March marriage as they revisit Hamburg, Carlsbad, Weimar, Leipzig, and Berlin-the cities of their youthful courtship.
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William Dean Howells, author of “The Rise of Silas Lapham”, lived in a log cabin for a year when he was a young boy before he and his family moved to Columbus, Ohio. “My Year in a Log Cabin”, written in the realist style Howells is known for, is an entertaining and heartfelt reminiscence of that year.
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The Sleeping-Car, a farce by William Dean Howells.
The Sleeping Car is a farce play in three parts by William Dean Howells, first published in the United States in 1883. This play takes place entirely within a 24-hour period on a railway sleeping car, and revolves around a woman's late night confusion regarding the premature appearance of her husband and brother.
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William Dean Howells (1837-1920) wrote novels, plays, essays, poems, reviews and travel pieces that touched on every day people and their experiences. A prime example of Howell's realism is this 1890 novel; it is a psychologically probing reflection on social and personal upheaval in the nineteenth century, which the author considered to be his "most vital" book. The story interweaves themes, plots and characters in New York City and projects Howells...
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In addition to his eminence as a novelist, William Dean Howells was a prominent figure in the development of the American theater. He wrote the play, “A Counterfeit Presentment” in 1877. The comedy develops a slightly romantic and dramatic side as it follows the two main characters, Barlett and Cummings.
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This 1910 collection of satiric essays on editors, the publishing industry, music, and culture includes "Sclerosis of the Tastes," "Intimations of Italian Opera," "The Superiority of Our Inferiors," "Unimportance of Women in Republics," "Cheapness of the Costliest City on Earth," "The Magazine Muse," "Qualities Without Defects," and "A Normal Hero and Heroine Out of Work."
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Imagine meeting a literary legend. In this whimsical fantasy, William Dean Howells does just that. Here, Howells pretends to meet Shakespeare at the Shakespeare Festival. They are joined by Sir Francis Bacon, leading to jokes about the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy. To Howell's delight, Shakespeare provides many glimpses into the jovial times in which he lived.
13) Tuscan Cities
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Howells spent several years in Italy as a diplomat. He wrote a number of timeless books based on his travels there, including Italian Journeys and Venetian Life. A captivating portrait of one of Italy's fabled regions, Tuscan Cities is indispensable reading for travelers and armchair dreamers alike.
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Published in 1893, The Coast of Bohemia features a female art student as its protagonist. The scenery and feel of the book is said to have been inspired by Howells's early experiences at Pfaff's, a beer cellar in New York that drew artists, playwrights, and writers.
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Published in two volumes, Howells's studies in the great heroines of nineteenth century English-language fiction make delightful reading. This first volume takes the reader from Fanny Burney's unforgettable Evelina to the Bronte sisters' remarkable Jane and Catherine. Along the way, female protagonists from the works of Edgeworth, Austen, Radcliffe, Scott, Dickens, Hawthorne, and Thackeray, among others, are closely and keenly observed.
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Praised for the masterfully drawn protagonist, Jeff Durgan, The Landlord at Lion's Head-considered one of Howells's best novels for its expert characterization-follows Durgin from his impoverished childhood on a New England farm, to his unsuccessful career at Harvard, and finally to success at his fashionable hotel on the old farm's site.
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William Dean Howells frequently drew on his Midwestern childhood for his fiction. Based on an incident in Ohio that had always fascinated him, The Leatherwood God tells the intriguing tale of how a charlatan named Joseph Dylks, claiming to be a messenger of God (or even God himself), exploited the pious townspeople, split their devout community in two, and then disappeared.
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A naïve Massachusetts schoolteacher sails to Italy, where she is harassed by a drunk and meets a Boston socialite who will become her husband. The Lady of the Aroostook explores a favorite theme of Howells-conflicting social habits, in this case those of the American village and those of the American city.
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Some of William Dean Howells's best fiction examines the contrast between different manners or levels of sophistication, a subject made familiar to him in part by his sojourn as an American in Italy. This collection of stories shows American and Italian manners in conflict, drawing on Howells's own experiences as a diplomat in Venice.
20) April Hopes
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William Dean Howells, the highly respected author of novels of social realism, occasionally turned his storytelling skills to romantic comedies. In 1888 he published April Hopes, a comedy of manners that follows the romantic complications between a young woman and her fiancé.