Lewis, (Harry)
Sinclair (1885-1951), American novelist, whose naturalistic
style and choice
of subject matter was much imitated by later writers.
He replaced the traditionally romantic and
complacent conception of
American life
with one that was realistic and even bitter.
Lewis was born in
Sauk Center, Minnesota, on February 7, 1885, and was
educated at Yale
University. From 1907 to 1916 he was a newspaper
reporter and a literary editor.
In Main Street
(1920) Lewis first developed the theme that was to run
through his most
important work: the monotony, emotional frustration, and
lack of spiritual
and intellectual values in American middle-class life.
His novel Babbitt
(1922) mercilessly characterizes the small-town American
businessman who conforms blindly to the
materialistic social and ethical
standards of his
environment; the word "Babbitt," designating a man of this
type, has become part of the language. In
Arrowsmith (1925) Lewis exposed
the lack of scientific idealism sometimes
found in the medical profession;
Elmer Gantry
(1927) portrays a type of hypocritical and mercenary religious
leader. In
another of these crusading novels, Dodsworth (1929), Lewis depicts
the egotistic, pretentious married woman
sometimes found in American
upper-middle-class
circles.
Among his later
works are It Can't Happen Here (1935), the chilling story of
a future
revolution leading to Fascist control of the U.S., and Kingsblood Royal
(1947), a novel on racial intolerance. Lewis
was fascinated by the theater. He
collaborated on a dramatization of Dodsworth
(1934) with the American playwright
Sidney Howard and did his own dramatization of
It Can't Happen Here (1936).
Lewis died near
Rome on January 10, 1951. From Main Street to Stockholm, a
collection of his
letters, was published posthumously in 1952. His reputation
was
international. Although he generally scoffed at prizes and refused the Pulitzer
Prize in 1926 for Arrowsmith, Lewis accepted
the 1930 Nobel Prize in literature.
He was the first American ever to receive this
award.
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