William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American realist author and literary critic. He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1871, but his literary reputation really took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which describes the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888) and A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890). While known primarily as a novelist, his short story "Editha" (1905) - included in the collection Between the Dark and the Daylight (1907) - appears in many anthologies of American literature. Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Ibsen, Zola, Verga, and, especially, Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of many American writers. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence.
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David W. Levy is David Ross Boyd Professor of American Histoy at the University of Oklahoma. His special interest is American intellectual history. He has published Herbert Croly of the New Republic: The Life and Thought of an American Progressive (1985) and The Debate over Vietnam (1991) and is coeditor of the five-volume collection The Letters of Louis D. Brandeis (1972-1978) and of FDR's Fireside Chats (1992). Levy has won the University of Oklahoma Regents' Award for Superior Teaching and the Student Association's prize for outstanding teacher at the University of Oklahoma.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Forgotten Gem,
By Arthur (Lawrence, Kansas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: A Traveler from Altruria (Bedford Series in History & Culture) (Paperback)
Although this isn't considered one of Howells' better novels, it's one of my personal favorites. Towards the end of his career, this "dean" of American letters became increasingly concerned with political issues. In particular, he began to align himself, to an extent, with the socialist movement. He never became a full-blown socialist, but he did appreciate their philosophy and understand the limitations of our American democracy. As a result of this growing interest, Howells' fiction turned from socio-cultural concerns to matters of politics. A Traveler from Altruria is a fine example of this change in subject matter. Despite the fact that many critics have interpreted this ostensibly utopian novel as a blind--and rather naive--call to socialism, I heartily disagree. In fact, I contend that Howells was self-consciously and ironically questioning the socialist movement and the utopian tradition. Howells' underappreciated effort is concise, witty and sophisticated. I recommend it to all fans of American literature and to all students of political science. The Bedford edition is exquisitely packaged and shrewdly conceptualized. The introduction, appendices, and other ancillary materials make for a thorough and savvy document.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Utopian Novel,
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This review is from: A Traveler from Altruria (Bedford Series in History & Culture) (Paperback)
I really enjoyed this book although I thought at the beginning that it was really going to be dreary. I actually read it in a class taught by the editor of the book, David Levy. His insights during class made the book more interesting to me and I ended up really liking it. The utopia that it presents is unusual and quite unlike any I have encountered in any other piece of literature. The end of the novel does seem to kind of go off track into a seeminly endless socialist rambling, but overall the book is very good. Seeing our society from the Altrurian's point of view was kind of jolt and made me look at many things differently. Overall, I would recommend highly recommend this novel.
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