Includes bibliographical references (pages 437-498) and index.
Chronology of Howells' life and work -- Parallel lives -- Warring ambitions, 1851-1859 -- Years of decision, 1859-1861 -- Consul at Venice, 1861-1865 -- Atlantic years, 1 : 1865-1867 -- Atlantic years, 2 : 1867-1871 -- His Mark Twain, from 1869 -- Fictional lives, 1871-1878 -- From Venice as far as Belmont, 1878-1882 -- In England and Italy, 1882-1883 -- The man of business, 1883-1886 -- Heartache and horror, 1886-1890 -- Words and deeds, 1890-1894 -- Peripatetic, 1895-1899 -- Kittery Point, 1900-1905 -- Greater losses, 1906-1910 -- Reconsiderations, 1911-1917 -- Eighty years and after, 1918-1920.
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Possibly the most influential figure in the history of American letters, William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was, among other things, a leading novelist in the realist tradition, a formative influence on many of America's finest writers, and an outspoken opponent of social injustice. This biography, the first comprehensive work on Howells in fifty years, enters the consciousness of the man and his times, revealing a complicated and painfully honest figure who came of age in an era of political corruption, industrial greed, and American imperialism. Written with verve and originality in a highly a.