9780585199610 (3 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Good. William Dean Howells was the foremost champion of realism in late-nineteenth-century American fiction. The three novels in this Library of America volume perceptively and often satirically examine the conflict between Christian ideals and commercial success, the contrast between a societys rituals of courtship and the realities of love, and the way in which a communitys democratic aspirations are contradicted by its class divisions.In The Ministers Charge (1886), Lemuel Barker leaves his impoverished farm and comes to Boston hoping to become a published poet. Proud, innocent, and implacably honest, he is quickly plunged into the humiliating depths of urban homelessness. His plight weighs on the conscience of David Sewell, a minister who could not bear to tell Barker how bad his poetry was. As he witnesses Lemuels attempts to live a dignified life in a city marked by cruel indifference and unexpected kindness, Sewell must confront the complicity he shares in the fate of every member of his society.April Hopes (1887) was, by Howellss later recollection, the first novel that he wrote with the distinct consciousness that he was writing as a realist. Alice Pasmer is the only daughter of parents whose dwindling investments have forced their return from Europe to New England. When Alice meets Dan Mavering, the easygoing son of a wealthy wallpaper manufacturer, her mother begins a careful campaign to bring about their marriage.The heroine of Annie Kilburn (1888) returns to her Hatboro, Massachusetts, home after eleven years abroad and finds a once-quiet village rapidly turning into a sprawling factory town with paved streets, electric lights, and a department store. Unmarried at thirty-one, the daughter of a prominent old family, she renews ties with old friends and begins her life anew. Throughout, Howells portrays the faults and virtues of his heroine and her neighbors with affection, understanding, and wit.LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nations literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, Americas best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Condition: Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.

Condition: Very Good. Item in very good condition! Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc.