The Rise of Sinclair Lewis examines the making of Lewis's best-selling novels Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith, and Elmer Gantry--their sources, composition, publication, and subsequent critical reception. Drawing on thousands of pages of material from Lewis's notes, outlines, and drafts--most of it never before published--James M. Hutchisson shows how Lewis selected usable materials and shaped them, through his unique vision, into novels that reached and remained part of the American literary imagination. Hutchisson also describes for the first time how large a role was played by Lewis's wives, assistants, and publishers in determining the final shape of his books.

Elmer Gantry isn’t suited to be a lawyer, so he becomes a preacher instead. Although he experiences a variety of failures, and even more successes, Gantry ultimately finds this new career path suits him very well indeed—despite his drinking and womanizing. Throughout his time as a preacher Gantry progresses through the hierarchies of the Baptist and Methodist churches, dabbles in revivalism and “New Thought,” and even experiments with politics, all the while emerging from scandals relatively unscathed and ready to move onward and upward once again. Sinclair Lewis published the satirical Elmer Gantry in 1927 much to the dismay of the religious community. It was denounced from the pulpit, banned by many, and even engendered threats of violence. Despite this—or perhaps because of it—it went on to become a massive success and the best selling novel of that year. One of the most savage satirical assaults against institutionalized religion and its hypocrisy in American literature, Elmer Gantry continues to be a window into a particularly important aspect of American history. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

Carol Milford dreams of living in a small, rural town. But Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, isn't the paradise she'd imagined. First published in 1920, this unabridged edition of the Sinclair Lewis novel is an American classic, considered by many to be his most noteworthy and lasting work. As a work of social satire, this complex and compelling look at small-town America in the early 20th century has earned its place among the classics.

A brand-new collection of Sinclair Lewis's prolific body of short fiction, focusing on the author's primary concerns: the issue of class, work and money in America.

An English schoolboy is snatched into another world by the magician scientist Salaman, who forces him to brave underwater terrors in a quest for the priceless Mirrorstone.

“The novel that foreshadowed Donald Trump’s authoritarian appeal.”—Salon It Can’t Happen Here is the only one of Sinclair Lewis’s later novels to match the power of Main Street, Babbitt, and Arrowsmith. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press. Called “a message to thinking Americans” by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can’t Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today’s news. Includes an Introduction by Michael Meyer and an Afterword by Gary Scharnhorst