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Howells, William Dean, 1837-1920We have 90 books for this author.
 William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. BiographyBorn in Martins Ferry, Ohio, originally Martinsville, to William Cooper and Mary Dean Howells, Howells was the second of eight children. His father was a newspaper editor and printer, and the father moved frequently around Ohio. Howells began to help his father with typesetting and printing work at an early age. In 1852, his father arranged to have one of Howells' poems published in the Ohio State Journal without telling him. In 1856, Howells was elected as a Clerk in the State House of Representatives. In 1858, he began to work at the Ohio State Journal where he wrote poetry, short stories, and also translated pieces from French, Spanish, and German. He avidly studied German and other languages and was greatly interested in Heinrich Heine. In 1860, he visited Boston and met with American writers J. T. Fields, James Russell Lowell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson Said to be rewarded for a biography of Abraham Lincoln used during the election of 1860, he gained a consulship in Venice. On Christmas Eve 1862, he married Elinor Mead at the American embassy in Paris. Upon returning to the U.S., he wrote for various magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. From 1866, he became an assistant editor for the Atlantic Monthly and was made editor in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881. In 1869, he first met Mark Twain, which sparked a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style--his advocacy of Realism--was his relationship with the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who in the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans (Fryckstedt 1958). He wrote his first novel, The Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot. While known primarily as a novelist, his short story "Editha" (1905) appears in many anthologies of American literature. Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature. In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president. In 1928, eight years after Howells' death, his daughter published his correspondence as a biography of his literary years. He was the father of the architect John Mead Howells. Selected works
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His poems were collected in 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills appeared in 1895. He was the founder of the school of American realists who derived through the Russians from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other form of fiction, although he was full of encouragement for new writers in whom he discovered a fresh note. It can hardly be doubted that his was the most influential work done in American fiction during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Published as
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This biographical information was gathered from the William_Dean_Howells page, courtesy of the Wikipedia project. BooksThe Albany Depot : a FarceAmerican Literary Centers (from Literature and Life) Annie Kilburn : a Novel April Hopes A Belated Guest (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) Between the Dark and the Daylight Cambridge Neighbors (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) A Chance Acquaintance The Coast of Bohemia Complete March Family Trilogy The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar Complete Project Gutenberg William Dean Howells Literature Essays Complete Project Gutenberg William Dean Howells Works Confessions of a Summer Colonist (from Literature and Life) Criticism and Fiction Dr. Breen's Practice Editor's Relations with the Young Contributor (from Literature and Life) The Elevator Emile Zola Familiar Spanish Travels Fennel and Rue A Foregone Conclusion The Garotters Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Complete Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 1 Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 2 Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 3 Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 4 Hazard of New Fortunes, a — Volume 5 Henry James, Jr. Images from Writings of William Dean Howells Indian Summer Italian Journeys The Kentons The Lady of the Aroostook The Landlord at Lions Head — Complete The Landlord at Lions Head — Volume 1 The Landlord at Lions Head — Volume 2 Last Days in a Dutch Hotel (from Literature and Life) The Leatherwood God Life at High Tide Literary Boston as I Knew It (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) Literary Friends and Acquaintance; a Personal Retrospect of American Authorship Literature and Life (Complete) A Little Swiss Sojourn London Films The Man of Letters as a Man of Business The Man of Letters as a Man of Business The Minister's Charge A Modern Instance Modern Italian Poets Essays and Versions My First Visit to New England (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) My Literary Passions My Mark Twain (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) Oliver Wendell Holmes (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) An Open-Eyed Conspiracy; an Idyl of Saratoga A Pair of Patient Lovers The Parlor Car A Psychological Counter-Current in Recent Fiction Quaint Courtships Questionable Shapes Ragged Lady, the — Complete Ragged Lady — Volume 1 Ragged Lady — Volume 2 The Register The Rise of Silas Lapham Roman Holidays, and Others Roundabout to Boston (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) Seven English Cities Short Stories and Essays (from Literature and Life) The Sleeping-Car, a farce Some Anomalies of the Short Story (from Literature and Life) Southern Lights and Shadows Spanish Prisoners of War (from Literature and Life) Staccato Notes of a Vanished Summer (from Literature and Life) Standard Household-Effect Company, the (from Literature and Life) The Story of a Play A Novel Studies of Lowell (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) Suburban Sketches Their Silver Wedding Journey — Complete Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 1 Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 2 Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 3 Their Wedding Journey Through the Eye of the Needle A Romance A Traveler from Altruria: Romance Venetian Life White Mr. Longfellow, the (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) The Whole Family: a Novel by Twelve Authors Widger's Quotations from the Project Gutenberg Editions of the Works of William Dean Howells |
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