William Dean Howells – 1837-1920

The novels of Howells are realistic chronicles of American life as it shifted from the simplicity of the early 19th century to the complexity of the turn of that century. His best work, the 1882 A Modern Instance, depicts the inexorable disintegration of a modern marriage, while his most popular work, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), is the story of a simple businessman’s struggle to rise within Boston society. Howells was an important influence on and mentor to many of his younger contemporaries, and he was an intimate literary adviser to Mark Twain.