ELMER GANTRY

Grosset & Dunlap, New York 1929, 1929. Grosset & Dunlap, New York 1929. Copyright,1927 ,by Harccourt, Brace and Company, inc. Navy Blue cloth over boards orange design on spine, blue lettering. VERY GOOD++/GOOD. Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church--a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence--is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire. (good read)
On publication in 1927, Elmer Gantry created a public furor. The book was banned in Boston and other cities and denounced from pulpits across the United States.[4] One cleric suggested that Lewis should be imprisoned for five years, and there were also threats of physical violence against the author. Evangelist Billy Sunday called Lewis "Satan's cohort"

However, the book was a commercial success. It was the best-selling work of fiction in America for the year 1927, according to "Publishers Weekly".[6]. Grosset & Dunlap, New York 1929. Copyright,1927 ,by Harccourt, Brace and Company, inc. Stated Sixteenth Printing, January1929. Book Very Good ++ solid, no pulling of spine, no bumped corners, clean, no writing, fore-edge has slight some foxing. Navy Blue cloth over boards.