Babbitt - Hardcover

Lewis, Sinclair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781390843 ISBN 13: 9781781390849

Publisher: Benediction Classics, 2012

Synopsis

Babbitt, first published in 1922, is a satirical novel by Sinclair Lewis. Largely a critique of American culture, society, and behaviour, it challenges conformity and "the American Dream". Middle-aged George F. Babbitt, a property developer is a leading citizen in the town of Zenith. He is lovingly married to his wife Myra, with whom he has three children. Despite all his professional success and nice family, Babbitt believes he is living a dull, staid, middle-class life. He starts searching for a greater purpose but his life is poised on a slippery slope. His journey raises thought-provoking questions which were as relevant then as they are today.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

In the fall of 1920, Sinclair Lewis began a novel set in a fast-growing city with the heart and mind of a small town. For the center of his cutting satire of American business he created the bustling, shallow, and myopic George F. Babbitt, the epitome of middle-class mediocrity. The novel cemented Lewis's prominence as a social commentator.
Babbitt basks in his pedestrian success and the popularity it has brought him. He demands high moral standards from those around him while flirting with women, and he yearns to have rich friends while shunning those less fortunate than he. But Babbitt's secure complacency is shattered when his best friend is sent to prison, and he struggles to find meaning in his hollow life. He revolts, but finds that his former routine is not so easily thrown over.

From the Back Cover:

“[It is] by its hardness, its efficiency, its compactness that Mr. Lewis’s work excels.”—Virginia Woolf

About this edition

• Publisher: Benediction Classics
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1781390843
• ISBN 13: 9781781390849
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 422