William Dean Howells and the Ends of Realism (Studies in Major Literary Authors)

Despite efforts at revival by John Updike and others, William Dean Howells still remains in the shadows of his close friends Mark Twain and Henry James. This book works against decades of unfavorable comparisons with these literary giants. William Dean Howells and the Ends of Realism helps us to see him as a writer very much aware of his limitations and of his enormous importance in the development of an American literary tradition. A close look at his late works gives us a richer understanding of this powerful moment of transition in American literature, a moment when Howells and his venerable friends were inspiring and anointing a new generation of writers and taking a long, hard look at their own legacies and contributions. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Introduction......Page 9 Prologue......Page 14 1 “The Error He Championed”: The Minister’s Charge and Howells after The Rise of Silas Lapham......Page 17 2 A Hazard of New Fortunes and the “Aesthetic Immaturity of the American Reader”......Page 32 3 “Disintegrating under the Reader’s Eye”: The Aging Howells and His Public, 1890-1920......Page 47 4 The Leatherwood God and My Mark Twain: The Importance of Samuel Clemens in Howells’s Literary Imagination after 1910......Page 64 5 The Vacation of the Kelwyns, “The Critical Bookstore,” and Henry James’s “Right of Leaning Back”......Page 80 Appendix......Page 101 Notes......Page 123 Bibliography......Page 132 Index......Page 137