Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott

Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott - Paperback

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Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott
  • Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott
Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott - Paperback

Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott - Paperback

by Sinclair Lewis
$20.00
$20.00

Book Overview

by Sinclair Lewis (Author), Martin Bucco (Editor)

Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis's barbed portrait of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, shattered the myth of the American Middle West as God's Country and became a symbol of the cultural narrow-mindedness and smug complacency of small towns everywhere.

A Penguin Classic

At the center of Main Street is Carol Kennicott, the wife of a town doctor, who dreams of initiating social reforms and introducing art and literature to the community. The range of reactions when it was published in 1920 was extraordinary, reflecting the ambivalence in the novel itself and Lewis's own mixed feelings about his hometwon of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, the prototype for Gopher Prairie.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Back Jacket

This famous novel of life on Main Street, Gopher Prairie, mirrors with devastating honesty life on Main Streets from Albany to San Diego.

Author Biography

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, and graduated from Yale University in 1908. His college career was interrupted by various part-time occupations, including a period working at the Helicon Home Colony, Upton Sinclair's socialist experiment in New Jersey. He worked for some years as a freelance editor and journalist, during which time he published several minor novels. But with the publication of Main Street (1920), which sold half a million copies, he achieved wide recognition. This was followed by the two novels considered by many to be his finest, Babbitt (1922) and Arrowsmith (1925), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1926, but declined by Lewis. In 1930, following Elmer Gantry (1927) and Dodsworth (1929), Sinclair Lewis became the first American author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for distinction in world literature. This was the apogee of his literary career, and in the period from Ann Vickers (1933) to the posthumously published World So Wide (1951) Lewis wrote ten novels that reveal the progressive decline of his creative powers. From Main Street to Stockholm, a collection of his letters, was published in 1952, and The Man from Main Street, a collection of essays, in 1953. During his last years Sinclair Lewis wandered extensively in Europe, and after his death in Rome, his ashes were returned to his birthplace.

Number of Pages: 464
Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.74 x 5.07 IN
Publication Date: October 01, 1995
Accelerated Reader:
Quiz Name: Main Street
Interest Level: Upper Grades, 9-12
Reading Level: 8.6
Point Value: 30
ISBN9780140189018
Author Sinclair Lewis
PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
GenreLiterature
FormatPaperback
PublishedOctober 1995
LanguageENG- English
Pages464
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceTeens & young adults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Classics Fiction Literary

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About Sinclair Lewis

The son of a country doctor, Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. His childhood and early youth were spent in the Midwest, and later he attended Yale University, where he was editor of the literary magazine. After graduating in 1907, he worked as a reporter and in editorial positions at various newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses from the East Coast to California. He was able to give this work up after a few of his stories had appeared in magazines and his first novel, Our Mr. Wrenn (1914), had been published. Main Street (1920) was his first really successful novel, and his reputation was secured by the publication of Babbitt (1922). Lewis was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Arrowsmith (1925) but refused to accept the honor, saying the prize was meant to go to a novel that celebrated the wholesomeness of American life, something his books did not do. He did accept, however, when in 1930 he became the first American writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. During the last part of his life, he spent a great deal of time in Europe and continued to write both novels and plays. In 1950, after completing his last novel, World So Wide (1951), he intended to take an extended tour but became ill and was forced to settle in Rome, where he spent some months working on his poems before dying.

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