Venetian Life - Softcover

Howells, William Dean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1499706553 ISBN 13: 9781499706550

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014

Synopsis

This collection of literature attempts to compile many of the classic, timeless works that have stood the test of time and offer them at a reduced, affordable price, in an attractive volume so that everyone can enjoy them.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In 1860, W. D. Howells wrote a campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln won the presidency, Howells was rewarded with the job of consul in Venice.

He arrived there in 1862, aged twenty-five, and lived for three years on the Grand Canal. Howells would use the canal for a morning swim during the warmer months and then, perhaps, go off to his office.

For a young nineteenth-century American who had left school at age nine in order to work, the hardest part of his sinecure was that-no doubt for the first time in his experience-he had almost nothing to do. "I dreaded the easily formed habit of receiving a salary for no service performed," he wrote. "I reminded myself that, soon or late, I must go back to the old fashion of earning money, and that it had better be sooner than later." And so-"though for some strange reasons it was the saddest and strangest thing in the world to do"-Howells left Venice. While he was on the whole happy to do so, Howells said upon his departure, "Never had the city seemed so dream-like and unreal as in this light of farewell." Venetian Life flows from the enchantment, the magical improbability of the years Howells spent in that magnificent city dining with the rich, mingling with the humble, and reporting on it all with a uniquely American wit and curiosity.

About the Author:

W. D. Howells (1837-1920) is one of America's most important men of letters. In addition to writing such classics as The Rise of Silas Lapham (Norton, 1982) and Italian Journeys (Marlboro Books/Northwestern, 1999), Howells served as editor of the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's and authored novels, dramas, autobiographical works, and books of travel.

About this edition

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1499706553
• ISBN 13: 9781499706550
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 118