Main Street
by Sinclair Lewis (Deceased)
- Used
- Paperback
- Condition
- Used
- Seller
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Luddenham, New South Wales, Australia
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About This Item
The classic novel about the downsides of small-town life by the Nobel Prize???winning author of Babbitt and It Can???t Happen Here. Carol is a relatively worldly and educated woman, and when she marries a doctor and follows him to his hometown of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, she hopes to put the things she has learned into practice and contribute to the improvement of her new community. But the locals are far from welcoming, in this satirical masterpiece by one of the twentieth century???s most accomplished novelists, famed for chronicling the foibles of American culture.
Synopsis
Main Street by Sinclair Lewis is a satirical novel concerning small town America. The story follows Carol Milford, a liberal and free-spirited woman, as she marries Dr. William Kennicott and settles in his hometown of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota. Upon arrival, Carol is shocked by the conservatism and general backwardness of Gopher Prairie—which is loosely based on Lewis’ hometown of Sauk Centre, Minnesota. The residents of Gopher Prairie seem more interested in gossip than larger cultural or social issues, which frustrates Carol. In various attempts to reform the town, she implements one improvement project after another, all of them ending in failure. In the end, Carol realizes that her frustrations with the individuals of the town should really have been directed towards its institutions and that although she was been beaten, she has kept the faith. Lewis initially seems to be attacking his small town roots in the novel, but his satire is double-edged; Main Street is not only a critique of simple townspeople, but also of the superficial intellectuals who look down on them. Main Street was not expected to be a commercial success. Lewis anticipated selling 10,000 copies; Harcourt, Brace and Howe anticipated 20,000. In the first six months of 1921, Main Street sold over 180,000 copies. Main Street is ranked 68th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century. The novel was initially awarded the Pulitzer Prize for literature that year, but the Board of Trustees overturned the decision and gave the prize to Edith Wharton for The Age of Innocence instead. (In 1925, Lewis rejected the Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith because he felt that he had deserved the prize for Main Street.)
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Details
- Bookseller
- Petes Loved Books (AU)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- Product_2307
- Title
- Main Street
- Author
- Sinclair Lewis (Deceased)
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Binding
- Paperback
- Publisher
-
panther
- Place of Publication
- London
- Date Published
1965
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
- Bookseller catalogs
- www.peteslovedbooks.com;
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