American novelist, playwright, and social critic who gained popularity with satirical novels. Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to American. His total output includes 22 novels and three plays. Although Lewis often criticized the American way of living, his basic view of the "American human comedy" was optimistic. Harry Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, a prairie village in the heart of Minnesota, as the third son of a country doctor. His mother, who was the daughter of a Canadian physician, died of tuberculosis when Lewis was six years old. His father was remarried a year later to Isabel Warner. Lewis considered her psychically his own mother. Later, Lewis characterized Sauk Center as "narrow-minded and socially provincial" and books offered him one way of escape: he had access to the three or four hundred volumes, exclusive of medical books, in his father's library. From 1913-14 Lewis produced a syndicated book page, which helped him to gain good reviews of his own works by his fellow writers. In 1914 Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger, an editor at Vogue. Their son, Wells, was named after the famous British author H.G. Wells, to whose social ideas Lewis was drawn to. For the following two years he worked as an editor and advertising manager at the book publishing firm George H. Doran Company. In 1916 Lewis abandoned his job and traveled with his wife around the country. After publishing two novels, Lewis devoted himself entirely to writing.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Sinclair Lewis
American novelist, playwright, and social critic who gained popularity with satirical novels. Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to American. His total output includes 22 novels and three plays. Although Lewis often criticized the American way of living, his basic view of the "American human comedy" was optimistic. Harry Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, a prairie village in the heart of Minnesota, as the third son of a country doctor. His mother, who was the daughter of a Canadian physician, died of tuberculosis when Lewis was six years old. His father was remarried a year later to Isabel Warner. Lewis considered her psychically his own mother. Later, Lewis characterized Sauk Center as "narrow-minded and socially provincial" and books offered him one way of escape: he had access to the three or four hundred volumes, exclusive of medical books, in his father's library. From 1913-14 Lewis produced a syndicated book page, which helped him to gain good reviews of his own works by his fellow writers. In 1914 Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger, an editor at Vogue. Their son, Wells, was named after the famous British author H.G. Wells, to whose social ideas Lewis was drawn to. For the following two years he worked as an editor and advertising manager at the book publishing firm George H. Doran Company. In 1916 Lewis abandoned his job and traveled with his wife around the country. After publishing two novels, Lewis devoted himself entirely to writing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment