This book contain collection of 6 books
1. The Rise of Silas Lapham [1885]
2. A Traveler from Altruria: Romance [1894]
3. Through the Eye of the Needle : A Romance [1907]
4. Familiar Spanish Travels [1913]
5. Henry James, Jr.
6. Emile Zola
About the Author
William Dean Howells, 1837-1920
American realist author and literary critic.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn [1888] and A Hazard of New Fortunes [1890].
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni V***a, Benito Pérez Galdós, and Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
