Profile of William Dean Howells on Famous Like Me

William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American realist author. Born in Ohio, he was rewarded for his biography of Abraham Lincoln, used during the election of 1860, with a consulship in Venice. Upon returning to the U.S., he wrote for various magazines, including Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. He wrote his first novel, The Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his career took off with his first realist novel, A Modern Instance.

Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen and Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputation in the United States. Nevertheless, Howells's own reputation in American literature has waned somewhat, with his novels being considered "prudish." According to him, the vast majority of people who would read his works were women and he wrote in a way that would not offend them.

In 1904, he was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1928, eight years after Howells' death, his daughter published his correspondence as a biography of his literary years.

Today, Howells is most famous for his literary criticism and his editorial support of authors like Mark Twain, Thorstein Veblen and Henry James.

External link

• Works by William Dean Howells at Project Gutenberg
• William Dean Howells Societyincludes a biographical sketch of Howells, links to his works (including the "Editor's Study" columns), questions and replies, bibliographies, and pictures.

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