Boston: Twayne, 1980. The standard collection.

Biography and Criticism

Cady, Edwin H. The Realist at War: The Mature Years 1885-1920 of William Dean Howells. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1958. The second of a two-volume biography, this one begins after Howells had written The Rise of Silas Lapham.

Carter, Everett. Howells and the Age of Realism. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1954. The first important critical study of Howells.

Cowley, John W. The Dean of American Letters: The Late Career of William Dean Howells. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999. An intelligent, balanced study of the later years.

Dietrichson, Jan W. The Image of Money in the American Novel of the Gilded Age. Oslo: The American Institute, University of Oslo, 1969. The book is divided between Henry James and Howells, reviewing each author’s treatment of money.

Escholz, Paul A., editor. Critics on William Dean Howells. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1975. An anthology of essays and perspectives on Howells.

Garlin, Sender. Three American Radicals. Boulder, CO: West-view, 1991. A good review of the Haymarket Affair, if trying too hard to promote Howells as a “radical.”

Kazin, Alfred. On Native Grounds. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1942. This magisterial work on American prose from 1890 to the present begins with a beautifully poised, succinct summation of Howells’ career and importance.

Lynn, Kenneth S. William Dean Howells, An American Life. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971. Probably the best biography of Howells, superbly written.

Mielke, Robert. “The Riddle of the Painful Earth”: Suffering and Society in W. D. Howells’ Major Writing of the Early 1890s. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1994. A sympathetic study of Howells’ political views as they manifested in the novels.

Trilling, Lionel. The Opposing Self: Nine Essays in Criticism. New York: Viking, 1955. Trilling’s essay on Howells remains one of the most suggestive and penetrating pieces of criticism about the author.

Vanderbilt, Kermit. The Achievement of William Dean Howells. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968. Analyzes in depth four of Howells’ major novels, including A Hazard of New Fortunes.

PART FIRST

I

“NOW YOU THINK THIS THING OVER, March, and let me know the last of next week,” said Fulkerson. He got up from the chair which he had been sitting astride, with his face to its back, and tilting toward March on its hind legs, and came and rapped upon his table with his thin bamboo stick. “What you want to do is to get out of the insurance business, anyway. You acknowledge that yourself.