<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934</id><updated>2011-07-30T14:12:23.424-07:00</updated><title type='text'>W. D. Howells in the News</title><subtitle type='html'>News items about W. D. Howells (1837-1920), American author and critic</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>45</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-8136676533424848814</id><published>2011-05-23T09:27:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2011-05-23T09:27:25.459-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells Society site down temporarily</title><content type='html'>&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:worddocument&gt;   &lt;w:view&gt;Normal&lt;/w:View&gt;   &lt;w:zoom&gt;0&lt;/w:Zoom&gt;   &lt;w:punctuationkerning/&gt;   &lt;w:validateagainstschemas/&gt;   &lt;w:saveifxmlinvalid&gt;false&lt;/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid&gt;   &lt;w:ignoremixedcontent&gt;false&lt;/w:IgnoreMixedContent&gt;   &lt;w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext&gt;false&lt;/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText&gt;   &lt;w:compatibility&gt;    &lt;w:breakwrappedtables/&gt;    &lt;w:snaptogridincell/&gt;    &lt;w:wraptextwithpunct/&gt;    &lt;w:useasianbreakrules/&gt;    &lt;w:dontgrowautofit/&gt;   &lt;/w:Compatibility&gt;   &lt;w:donotoptimizeforbrowser/&gt;  &lt;/w:WordDocument&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;!--[if gte mso 9]&gt;&lt;xml&gt;  &lt;w:latentstyles deflockedstate="false" latentstylecount="156"&gt;  &lt;/w:LatentStyles&gt; &lt;/xml&gt;&lt;![endif]--&gt;&lt;!--[if gte mso 10]&gt; &lt;style&gt;  /* Style Definitions */  table.MsoNormalTable  {mso-style-name:"Table Normal";  mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;  mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;  mso-style-noshow:yes;  mso-style-parent:"";  mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;  mso-para-margin:0in;  mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;  mso-pagination:widow-orphan;  font-size:10.0pt;  font-family:"Times New Roman";  mso-ansi-language:#0400;  mso-fareast-language:#0400;  mso-bidi-language:#0400;} &lt;/style&gt; &lt;![endif]--&gt;  &lt;p class="MsoPlainText"&gt;Because of an outage at the main WSU web site, the W. D. Howells Society web site is down temporarily. The IT people say that it will be restored by the end of the week (5/27). Sorry for the inconvenience.&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p class="MsoPlainText"&gt; &lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p class="MsoPlainText"&gt;Donna Campbell&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-8136676533424848814?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/8136676533424848814/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=8136676533424848814&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/8136676533424848814'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/8136676533424848814'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2011/05/howells-society-site-down-temporarily.html' title='Howells Society site down temporarily'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-2006415915281409653</id><published>2011-03-26T09:21:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2011-03-26T09:22:00.368-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells quotation on KPCC</title><content type='html'>&lt;span style="text-decoration: underline;"&gt; From&lt;a href="http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/03/25/all-we-do-is-win-the-american-inequality-mentality/"&gt; http://www.scpr.org/programs/patt-morrison/2011/03/25/all-we-do-is-win-the-american-inequality-mentality/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div id="story-meta"&gt;         &lt;span id="audio-options"&gt;            &lt;span class="fullplayer"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;William Dean Howells once said, “Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.” &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-2006415915281409653?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/2006415915281409653/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=2006415915281409653&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/2006415915281409653'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/2006415915281409653'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2011/03/howells-quotation-on-kpcc.html' title='Howells quotation on KPCC'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-89515361536806754</id><published>2010-09-26T16:40:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2010-09-26T16:41:17.856-07:00</updated><title type='text'>W. D. Howells and Kanye West</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/09/these-days-the-men-are-gold-diggers.html"&gt;Vanity Fair:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In iconic American fiction, there’s William Dean Howells’s novel, &lt;i&gt;The Rise of Silas Lapham.&lt;/i&gt;  In one remarkably hilarious scene in the book, the patriarch of an  old-line Bostonian family admonishes his son for preferring to work for a  living instead of relying on the charity of his parents or the dowry of  a potential new wife. This “plebeian reluctance” to depend on the  wealth of others, the father laments, is the reason America shall never  have an aristocracy of its very own.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-89515361536806754?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/89515361536806754/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=89515361536806754&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/89515361536806754'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/89515361536806754'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2010/09/w-d-howells-and-kanye-west.html' title='W. D. Howells and Kanye West'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-6386805933210765522</id><published>2010-02-27T09:03:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2010-02-27T09:05:07.587-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells on "in like a lion, out like a lamb"</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.rhinelanderdailynews.com/articles/2010/02/26/outdoors/doc4b88b22c4fa16885210381.txt"&gt;Rhinelander Daily News&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Through the years, March’s trademark blustery winds and changeable weather have earned it several terms and expressions. There is an old saying we still hear that March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The expression may have been inspired by poet William Dean Howells who wrote: “Tossing his mane of snows in wildest eddies ... Lion-like March cometh in hoarse.”&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-6386805933210765522?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/6386805933210765522/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=6386805933210765522&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/6386805933210765522'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/6386805933210765522'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2010/02/howells-on-in-like-lion-out-like-lamb.html' title='Howells on &quot;in like a lion, out like a lamb&quot;'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-4861902026776365284</id><published>2010-02-10T07:33:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2010-02-10T07:34:00.455-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells on Garfield</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://minnesota.publicradio.org/projects/2010/02/beyond-deployment/ptsd-timeline/index.shtml"&gt;Minnesota Public Radio&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;The war also forever changed Union general and future U.S. President James Garfield. "At the sight of these dead men whom other men had killed, something went out of him, the habit of a lifetime, that never came back again: The sense of the sacredness of life and the impossibility of destroying it," wrote 19th century author William Dean Howells of Garfield.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-4861902026776365284?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/4861902026776365284/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=4861902026776365284&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4861902026776365284'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4861902026776365284'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2010/02/howells-on-garfield.html' title='Howells on Garfield'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-4003078591687891727</id><published>2009-10-05T11:19:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-10-05T11:20:32.169-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Charles Seliger and Howells</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-907-NY-City-Life-Examiner%7Ey2009m10d4-Seliger"&gt;Seattle &lt;/a&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-907-NY-City-Life-Examiner%7Ey2009m10d4-Seliger"&gt;Examiner:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;Seliger’s affinity for science and organic forms seems part and parcel with his love of books and learning. A high school dropout, who ended up being more well-read than many college graduates, he spent much of his life reading omnivorously on a broad range of subjects: art, history, science, literature.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;“Once, when I was in one of those used bookshops, I found a book by the writer &lt;a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Dean_Howells"&gt;William Dean Howells&lt;/a&gt;,” Seliger told me on Wednesday evening. “When I got the book home, I noticed there was an inscription inside. It said, ‘To my dear sister.’ And it was signed by Howells.”&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He smiled at the memory, still relishing the thought that he had ended up with the very special, personalized volume .&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-4003078591687891727?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/4003078591687891727/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=4003078591687891727&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4003078591687891727'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4003078591687891727'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2009/10/charles-seliger-and-howells.html' title='Charles Seliger and Howells'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-642492586932687483</id><published>2009-07-15T10:41:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-07-15T10:43:20.216-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and the NAACP</title><content type='html'>From "Happy 100th Birthday NAACP" by Michael Henry Adams (&lt;a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-henry-adams/happy-100th-birthday-naac_b_230024.html"&gt;illustrated essay at The Huffington Post)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Racially and socially diverse, early members of the resulting organization included Joel and Arthur Spingarn, Josephine Ruffin, Mary Talbert, Inez Milholland, Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Sophonisba Breckinridge, John Haynes Holmes, Mary McLeod Bethune, George Henry White, Charles Edward Russell, John Dewey, William Dean Howells, Lillian Wald, Charles Darrow, Lincoln Steffens, and Ray Stannard Baker.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-642492586932687483?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/642492586932687483/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=642492586932687483&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/642492586932687483'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/642492586932687483'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2009/07/howells-and-naacp.html' title='Howells and the NAACP'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-9089339146656703121</id><published>2008-12-07T21:38:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-07T21:40:41.451-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and "Leverage"</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/arts/television/06leve.html?ref=television"&gt;Modern Robin Hoods in an Urban Jungle&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;nyt_byline version="1.0" type=" "&gt; &lt;div class="byline"&gt;By GINIA BELLAFANTE&lt;/div&gt; &lt;/nyt_byline&gt;On the face of it, “Leverage,” a new drama that seems to have drawn its inspiration broadly and in disproportionate measure from “Ocean’s Eleven,” William Dean Howells and Encyclopedia Brown, comes to us this grim December with a certain prescience. The series (beginning on Sunday on TNT) devotes itself to the deflation of fat cats who have stolen, burned, bribed, defrauded: capitalist victimizers who are pierced each week by the slings and arrows of a band of independent hackers, thieves and grifters suddenly bound together to rectify the wrongs of economic disparity.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-9089339146656703121?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/9089339146656703121/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=9089339146656703121&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/9089339146656703121'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/9089339146656703121'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/12/howells-and-leverage.html' title='Howells and &quot;Leverage&quot;'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-7913472388045948500</id><published>2008-11-25T12:42:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-11-25T12:43:34.366-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and Obama</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22154"&gt;New York Review of Books:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Time is on our side again, and maybe a great deal of the emotion that overtook us on 125th Street had to do with those who are no longer with us, those who did not live to see this moment. I voted with thoughts of the absent. And we now can feel we are back on the side of History. Signed, sealed, delivered—we're his, but we'd expect that President-elect Obama would know all about the misgivings that men like Henry Adams and William Tecumseh Sherman had when Abraham Lincoln first arrived in Washington. People were desperate for direction, the air reeked of war, and the new president seemed so indecisive and quiet. Young men laughed nervously in the anteroom, William Dean Howells observed, as "the great soul enter[ed] upon its travail beyond the closed door." May the spirit of Lincoln continue to guide this unexpected and already much-trusted young black man about to move his family into the White House.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-7913472388045948500?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/7913472388045948500/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=7913472388045948500&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/7913472388045948500'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/7913472388045948500'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/11/howells-and-obama.html' title='Howells and Obama'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-4942053717343287126</id><published>2008-10-12T08:53:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-10-12T08:55:13.465-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Lionel Trilling and Howells</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08286/918772-44.stm"&gt;Post-Gazette&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;"Trilling's popularity then seemed just as unlikely as it would today," Arac said, contrasting the 1950s with the mid-19th-century when Americans believed "literature had power."&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;"Century [Illustrated] Magazine had a circulation of more than 100,000 in the 1880s when it published James 'The Bostonians' and William Dean Howells' 'The Rise of Silas Lapham,' " he said.&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;"Trilling's work was published in The Partisan Review with a circulation less than 3,000."&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;Yet, his essays in the 1950 collection, particularly "Reality in America," seemed "to hit a culture nerve" in the Cold War.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-4942053717343287126?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/4942053717343287126/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=4942053717343287126&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4942053717343287126'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/4942053717343287126'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/10/lionel-trilling-and-howells.html' title='Lionel Trilling and Howells'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-5200283313937973823</id><published>2008-09-20T07:09:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-09-20T07:12:47.939-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and realism, Howells and Boston</title><content type='html'>From a review of Philip Roth's new novel,&lt;a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/09/20/borot120.xml"&gt; London Telegraph&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The great American realist William Dean Howells referred to the benefit of being faithful to "poor Real Life", the force attained from the pressure of its "vast, natural, unaffected dullness". Roth has dulled his style to this mimetic realism precisely in order to reveal the pressure of Fifties America: "the rectitude tyrannizing my life, the constricting rectitude" that afflicts Marcus.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From &lt;a href="http://thephoenix.com/blogs/dontquoteme/archive/2008/09/18/keohane-exits-boston.aspx"&gt;The Phoenix&lt;/a&gt; (Boston):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Going further back, novelist William Dean Howells, the "Dean of American Letters," was a hard-core Hub loyalist who once decreed, "The Bostonian who leaves Boston ought to be condemned to perpetual exile." He relocated to New York in 1891, and had one of his characters, making a similar move, liken Boston to a living death.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, the irony is that Howells wound up not caring much for NYC, either, and spent a lot of time looking longingly back at Boston, as many who have followed in his footsteps do, and will continue to do indefinitely, or at least until rents get cheap enough to again tilt the balance away from our native reserve and standoffishness long enough for an arts scene to cohere, as it did in the '80s and early '90s in a big way.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-5200283313937973823?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/5200283313937973823/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=5200283313937973823&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/5200283313937973823'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/5200283313937973823'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/09/howells-and-realism-howells-and-boston.html' title='Howells and realism, Howells and Boston'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-7783311780629924179</id><published>2008-05-26T17:28:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-05-26T17:32:18.566-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells inducted into Martins Ferry Hall of Fame</title><content type='html'>Thanks to Greg Neubauer for this announcement.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Howells inducted into Martins Ferry Hall of Fame&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Martins Ferry's local paper write-up:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/503071.html"&gt;http://www.timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/503071.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Martins Ferry Public Library announcement:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://mfpl.org/hallhonor.asp"&gt;http://mfpl.org/hallhonor.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-7783311780629924179?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/7783311780629924179/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=7783311780629924179&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/7783311780629924179'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/7783311780629924179'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/05/howells-inducted-into-martins-ferry.html' title='Howells inducted into Martins Ferry Hall of Fame'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-1975112412258520698</id><published>2008-05-07T14:26:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2008-05-07T14:27:57.014-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Photograph of Howells at the National Portrait Gallery</title><content type='html'>From the new exhibit of the photographs of Zaida Ben-Yusuf:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;William Dean Howells visited Ben-Yusuf’s studio in the fall of 1899, just weeks before embarking on a lengthy North American lecture tour. Despite a backbreaking travel schedule, Howell’s lectures were a triumph with both critics and audiences and another professional coup for one of American literature’s most celebrated writers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Picture at &lt;a href="http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/oldguard03.html"&gt;http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/zaida/gallery/oldguard03.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-1975112412258520698?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/1975112412258520698/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=1975112412258520698&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/1975112412258520698'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/1975112412258520698'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2008/05/photograph-of-howells-at-national.html' title='Photograph of Howells at the National Portrait Gallery'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-527595192037703236</id><published>2007-03-30T09:16:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2007-03-30T09:16:37.094-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells Society News</title><content type='html'>&lt;pre&gt;&lt;i&gt;From Sanford Marovitz, Editor of _The Howellsian_:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Howells Society Dinner at the Tavern Club&lt;br /&gt;4 Boylston Place, Boston&lt;br /&gt;Friday, May 25, 2007 at 7 p.m.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many of you at the ALA conference six years ago may recall the superb dinner&lt;br /&gt;our Society enjoyed at the Tavern Club; the evening was enhanced by splendid&lt;br /&gt;dining and camaraderie in the inspiring atmosphere of Old Boston during the&lt;br /&gt;late 19th century.  Now we are planning to do it again!  The W. D. Howells&lt;br /&gt;Society will sponsor a dinner during this year's American Literature&lt;br /&gt;Association Conference in Boston at the historic Tavern Club, of which W. D.&lt;br /&gt;Howells was the first president. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Menu&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres before dinner&lt;br /&gt;Salad&lt;br /&gt;Beef Tenderloin with vegetable and starch&lt;br /&gt;Dessert&lt;br /&gt;Coffee or Tea&lt;br /&gt;Wine with dinner&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sufficient non-meat dishes will be available for vegetarians.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The all-inclusive price, with tip, for members and their guests is $70 each;&lt;br /&gt;for non-members the price is $80, but for those who wish to join the Society&lt;br /&gt;and send $10 dues to the treasurer before or with their dinner reservations,&lt;br /&gt;the dinner price for themselves and their guests will be reduced by $10 per&lt;br /&gt;person.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Reservations should be made by May 5 so that a final count can be submitted&lt;br /&gt;to the Tavern Club.  If you would like to attend, please mail your check in&lt;br /&gt;U. S. funds (payable to the "W. D. Howells Society") to&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dr. Elsa Nettels&lt;br /&gt;211 Indian Spring Rd.&lt;br /&gt;Williamsburg, VA 23185.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please indicate how your check should be divided ($80 for nonmember or $70&lt;br /&gt;for a member/$10 for WDHS membership).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please note that this will be a very special evening in the magnificent&lt;br /&gt;historic Tavern Club, an event to anticipate with joy-and you'll be in great&lt;br /&gt;company!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;**********************************************************************&lt;br /&gt;Howells Society Excursion&lt;br /&gt;**********************************************************************&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As on the day following our Tavern Club dinner in 2001, the Society has&lt;br /&gt;scheduled again a bus excursion to the Howells family home at Kittery Point.&lt;br /&gt;It will begin when we board the bus at our hotel on Saturday morning at 9&lt;br /&gt;and end in mid-afternoon the same day; the bus will leave Kittery Point at 2&lt;br /&gt;and arrive back at the hotel in time for participants to have the late&lt;br /&gt;afternoon in Boston.  Box lunches will be provided.  Although the Society&lt;br /&gt;has done this before, we may not have a chance to do it again, so if you'd&lt;br /&gt;like to visit the Howells Memorial Home, on a truly gorgeous site, this&lt;br /&gt;spring is the time to do it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A short program there will include an informal discussion by Susan Goodman&lt;br /&gt;and Carl Dawson on writing their distinguished biography, William Dean&lt;br /&gt;Howells: A Writer's Life (2005), with remarks by Sarah Daugherty and others;&lt;br /&gt;comments and questions from the floor will be welcome.  Through the&lt;br /&gt;generosity of the William Dean Howells Memorial Committee, to whom the&lt;br /&gt;Society is grateful indeed, the full cost of the excursion for all&lt;br /&gt;participants will be covered.  If you wish to participate in this special&lt;br /&gt;"happening" at the Howells Memorial, please notify Susan Goodman by e-mail:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;&lt;a href="http://lists.wsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/howells-l"&gt;sgoodman at english.udel.edu.&lt;/a&gt;  Because we expect a large turnout and bus seats&lt;br /&gt;are limited, it would be advisable to let her know as soon as possible.&lt;br /&gt;Membership in the Society is not required.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;*********************************************************************&lt;br /&gt;Two William Dean Howells Society Sessions at the 2007 ALA Conference&lt;br /&gt;*********************************************************************&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Howells and Marriage I&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Chair: Elsa Nettels, College of William and Mary&lt;br /&gt;1.  "A Grammar of Marriage: Love in Spite of Syntax in Silas Lapham,"&lt;br /&gt;William Rodney Herring, University of Texas&lt;br /&gt;2.  "The Art of Marriage: Taking the Woman Artist as Wife in A Hazard of New&lt;br /&gt;Fortunes," Sherry Li, National Taiwan University&lt;br /&gt;3. "Marriage and the American Medical Woman in Dr. Breen's Practice,"&lt;br /&gt;Frederick Wegener, California State University, Long Beach Howells and&lt;br /&gt;Marriage II&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Chair: Susan Goodman, University of Delaware&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. "Movement, Modernity, and the Marriage of Elinor Mead and William Dean&lt;br /&gt;Howells," Elif Armbruster, Suffolk University&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. "Love in Leisure Spaces: Tourism, Courtship, and Marriage in _The Coast&lt;br /&gt;of Bohemia_ and _An Open-Eyed Conspiracy_,"  Donna Campbell, Washington&lt;br /&gt;State University&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3.  "If You Liked That, You'll Like This: Howells and Theodor Fontane on&lt;br /&gt;Marriage," Richard Ellington, Independent Scholar&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4.  "A 'Record of Young Married Love': Marriage in William Dean Howells'&lt;br /&gt;Criticism and Reviews," Rachel Ihara, City University of New York&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-527595192037703236?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/527595192037703236/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=527595192037703236&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/527595192037703236'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/527595192037703236'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2007/03/howells-society-news.html' title='Howells Society News'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-5901436426440911368</id><published>2007-03-12T10:25:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2007-03-12T10:26:22.576-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and Realism</title><content type='html'>From a &lt;a href="http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/entertainment/books/16877380.htm"&gt;review of Alan Trachtenberg's &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Lincoln's Smile, and Other Enigmas&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With or without the aid of photography, writers also re-viewed American cities. Led by William Dean Howells and Jacob Riis, the "realists" tried to make urban spaces transparent and comprehensible and arouse moral indignation against poverty and exploitation. But, Trachtenberg argues, their work was, at bottom, voyeuristic; their readers "did not cross into the inner world of the slums." In an essay, "New York Streets," Howells recognized that while a picture of sidewalks swarming with children was "pleasingly effective," to live in that picture "was to inhale the stenches of the neglected street and to catch that yet fouler and dreadfuler poverty-smell which breed from the open doorways" - a reality that "makes you hasten your pace down to the river." At the turn of the 20th century, with Theodore Dreiser's &lt;i&gt;Sister Carrie&lt;/i&gt;, Trachtenberg suggests, the city was "naturalized": Data were converted into lived experience, and characters accepted, with neither compassion nor social guilt, as they committed "self-sufficient acts of desire."&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-5901436426440911368?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/5901436426440911368/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=5901436426440911368&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/5901436426440911368'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/5901436426440911368'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2007/03/howells-and-realism.html' title='Howells and Realism'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116659426431667603</id><published>2006-12-19T21:56:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-12-19T21:57:44.326-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Adam Gopnik on Howells</title><content type='html'>From &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;Through the Children's Gate&lt;/span&gt; (Knopf, 2006)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Howells is out of favor now. All literary reputation- making is unjust, but Howells is the victim of perhaps the single greatest injustice in American literary history. The period from 1880 to 1900, Henry Adams once said, was "our Howells-and-James epoch," and the two bearded grandees stood on terms as equal as the Smith brothers on a cough-drop box. But then Howells got identified unfairly with the "genteel" tradition, nice and dull. Now James gets Nicole Kidman and Helen Bonham Carter, even for his late fuzzy-sweater novels, along with biography after biography and collection after collection, and Howells gets one brave doomed defense every thirty years. Yet Howells, though an immeasurably less original sensibility than James, may be the better novelist, meaning that Howells on almost any subject strikes you as right, while James on almost any subject strikes you as James (p. 25)&lt;br /&gt;--Submitted by Stanley Wertheim&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116659426431667603?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116659426431667603/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116659426431667603&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116659426431667603'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116659426431667603'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/12/adam-gopnik-on-howells.html' title='Adam Gopnik on Howells'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116347840301782632</id><published>2006-11-13T20:25:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-11-13T20:28:21.156-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Reformers and Cranks</title><content type='html'>From Today in History's Thought for Today: "If we like a man's dream, we call him a reformer; if we don't like his dream, we call him a crank." -- William Dean Howells, American author (1837-1920).&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116347840301782632?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116347840301782632/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116347840301782632&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116347840301782632'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116347840301782632'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/11/reformers-and-cranks.html' title='Reformers and Cranks'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116241733182478759</id><published>2006-11-01T13:41:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-11-01T13:42:11.833-08:00</updated><title type='text'>W. D. Howells and Stephen King</title><content type='html'>From the &lt;a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06304/734259-44.stm"&gt;Pittsburgh Post-Gazette&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Twain's novels started the flowering of an American literature that was democratic, read by all. His closest friend and fellow novelist was William Dean Howells, born in Martins Ferry, Ohio, also the home of poet James Wright (and baseball's Niekro brothers -- what a town!).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Howells was once one of the country's most popular writers, whose books took on the social conventions of the times. His contemporaries, Henry James and Edith Wharton, sold far fewer books, yet nobody reads Howells today while James and Wharton are required for students of American literature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That fact confirms King's argument but also speaks to the nature of James and Wharton that goes beyond their reputation among academics. Their work endures because of its universal quality -- their language crosses the years while Howells' books remain stuck in the 19th century.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116241733182478759?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116241733182478759/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116241733182478759&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116241733182478759'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116241733182478759'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/11/w-d-howells-and-stephen-king.html' title='W. D. Howells and Stephen King'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116225590987853205</id><published>2006-10-30T16:51:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-10-30T16:51:49.886-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Adam Gopnik and A Hazard of New Fortunes</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1031/p13s01-bogn.html"&gt;The Christian Science Monitor:&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The essay "A Hazard of No Fortune" wrings the requisite amount of humor out of the search for a habitable space in New York. Gopnik notes that looking for an apartment in New York is "potentially fatal, like scaling Everest." Adding an interesting literary twist to what seems to be an entirely contemporary real estate horror story, Gopnik harks back to the forgotten "A Hazard of New Fortunes," a William Dean Howells novel, to prove that looking for an apartment in New York was every bit as traumatic over a century ago as it is today.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116225590987853205?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116225590987853205/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116225590987853205&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116225590987853205'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116225590987853205'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/10/adam-gopnik-and-hazard-of-new-fortunes.html' title='Adam Gopnik and A Hazard of New Fortunes'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116214609625423691</id><published>2006-10-29T10:20:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-10-29T10:21:36.263-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells and Thomas Hardy</title><content type='html'>From the &lt;a href="http://www.sundayherald.com/58734"&gt;Sunday Herald (Scotland)&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;FEW great books have received such an initial withering reception as Jude The Obscure. To Thomas Hardy, then aged 55, it was like being booed off stage. “A titanically bad book,” wrote one critic; “a shameful nightmare,” offered another. Yet that was only part of the story. Even as they grimaced and howled, the critics seemed to appreciate that beneath what they saw as coarseness, vulgarity and indecency, were glimpses of Hardy’s genius. And once the furore following publication died down, more sophisticated voices began to surface.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to William Dean Howells, the American man-of-letters, Hardy had produced “the greatest novel written in England for many years”. Heartened as Hardy no doubt was by the verdict of so eminent a judge, he was more exercised by the news that the Bishop of Wakefield had burnt his copy of the novel. It is a melancholy fact of literary life that bad reviews – even from an ecclesiastical source – have more impact than good ones.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116214609625423691?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116214609625423691/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116214609625423691&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116214609625423691'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116214609625423691'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/10/howells-and-thomas-hardy.html' title='Howells and Thomas Hardy'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-116032721410261405</id><published>2006-10-08T10:06:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2006-10-08T10:09:13.026-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells, Tennyson, and Radiohead</title><content type='html'>From the &lt;a href="http://www.observer.com/20061009/20061009_Jonathan_Liu_culture_books4.asp"&gt;New York Observer&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To judge from W&lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;hat’s Liberal About the Liberal Arts&lt;/span&gt;?, &lt;a href="http://www.michaelberube.com/"&gt;Michael Bérubé&lt;/a&gt;, a literature professor at Penn State, seems to be one of those strange academics who actually enjoys the undergraduates. While teaching &lt;a href="http://www.howellssociety.org"&gt;William Dean Howells&lt;/a&gt;’ &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;The Rise of Silas Lapham&lt;/span&gt;, for instance, he gets at the issue of social capital without help from Karl Marx or Pierre Bourdieu—instead, he heads straight for Thom Yorke.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;If he wants to explain to his class that the novel’s protagonist “is displaying the fact that he knows enough to know the ‘right’ kind of thing to say about Tennyson in 1875 … basically saying, ‘I like his early work, but his recent stuff is kind of weak,’” Mr. Bérubé  can translate the notion into an idiom his students will easily grasp: It’s like saying, “I liked Radiohead up until they released Kid A, but since then they’ve been spinning their wheels.”&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-116032721410261405?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/116032721410261405/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=116032721410261405&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116032721410261405'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/116032721410261405'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/10/howells-tennyson-and-radiohead.html' title='Howells, Tennyson, and Radiohead'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-115531336854505569</id><published>2006-08-11T09:22:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2006-08-11T09:22:48.556-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Wharton on Howells</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20060809-world-trade-center-september-11-oliver-stone-nicolas-cage-andrea-berloff-osama-bin-laden.shtml"&gt;American Heritage:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;According to Edith Wharton, the formula for success with American audiences was offered by the novelist William Dean Howells: “A tragedy with a happy ending.” If that’s the case, then Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center ought to be a smash.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-115531336854505569?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/115531336854505569/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=115531336854505569&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/115531336854505569'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/115531336854505569'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/08/wharton-on-howells.html' title='Wharton on Howells'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114955741208740843</id><published>2006-06-05T18:29:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2006-06-05T18:30:12.096-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Updike on Howells and Terrorism</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635212277,00.html"&gt;http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635212277,00.html&lt;/a&gt;Asked about his place in literary history, Updike seemed embarrassed. "It's hard to pick out the giants when they're still alive. It's hard to know how you'll do. The most likely thing is that you will be forgotten — like William Dean Howells.&lt;br /&gt;      "Howells reminds me of myself, trying to find the smiling aspects of American life. He was very successful in his lifetime and was in every way an admirable man who spoke up for liberalism. He was a good critic, too. But he's on the dust heap now as far as who is read.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114955741208740843?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114955741208740843/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114955741208740843&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114955741208740843'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114955741208740843'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/06/updike-on-howells-and-terrorism.html' title='Updike on Howells and Terrorism'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114801411242742755</id><published>2006-05-18T21:47:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2006-05-18T21:49:52.056-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Review of Richard Lingeman's DOUBLE LIVES</title><content type='html'>The new &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/books/review/14blount.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin"&gt;NYTimes Book Review (May 14, 2006) has a review of Double Lives&lt;/a&gt; by Richard Lingeman.  It is a study of literary friendships, and Howells/Clemens is included at length.  The reviewer (Roy Blount, Jr.) says that Howells "was perhaps the ideal writer friend; secure in his own standing, editorially influential on friends' behalf and too short to tower over anyone in person."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;--Gary Culbert&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114801411242742755?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114801411242742755/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114801411242742755&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114801411242742755'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114801411242742755'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/05/review-of-richard-lingemans-double.html' title='Review of Richard Lingeman&apos;s DOUBLE LIVES'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114236384079180027</id><published>2006-03-14T11:16:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-03-14T11:17:20.793-08:00</updated><title type='text'>From CBS4</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://cbs4.com/watercooler/watercooler_story_051180732.html"&gt;CBS4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thought for Today: “We are creatures of the moment; we live from one little space to another; and only one interest at a time fills these.”—William Dean Howells, American author and editor (1837-1920).&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114236384079180027?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114236384079180027/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114236384079180027&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114236384079180027'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114236384079180027'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/03/from-cbs4.html' title='From CBS4'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114236361286608577</id><published>2006-03-14T11:12:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-03-14T11:13:32.890-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Washington Post review of LAPHAM RISING</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030901859.html"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030901859.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;His debut novel, Lapham Rising , is about a brilliant curmudgeon driven to madness by his abhorrence of modern-day excess. The book has nothing to do with Lewis Lapham, the brilliant curmudgeon who rises each month to express his abhorrence of modern-day excess in the pages of Harper's magazine. Coincidentally, the title alludes to a novel written by a much earlier editor of Harper's named William Dean Howells. In addition to reigning over American criticism for a couple of decades at the end of the 19th century, Howells wrote a lot of very fine, boring novels that nobody -- except, apparently, Roger Rosenblatt -- reads anymore. His best, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885), is about a socially ambitious paint manufacturer who builds a spectacular mansion in Boston that eventually burns down, leading to his financial ruin -- and his moral redemption.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rosenblatt's novel plays with this story very loosely and sports a kind of goofiness and despair that would have rattled Howells's tea cup. The narrator is Harry March, an aging, divorced, long-blocked novelist who lives in ferocious isolation on a tiny sandbar in Quogue, N.Y., in the Hamptons, "because," he says, "I have trouble making connections." That's putting it mildly. He usually communicates with the outside world by megaphone or by passing notes on a remote-controlled toy boat. His only companion -- besides a life-sized statue of his ex-wife at the kitchen table -- is Hector, his talking dog, who's a born-again Christian. So witty and gentle are Hector's admonitions that it's impossible to tell if this absurdity is meant to be taken literally or if Harry is merely projecting his saner thoughts onto his dog.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114236361286608577?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114236361286608577/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114236361286608577&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114236361286608577'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114236361286608577'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/03/washington-post-review-of-lapham.html' title='Washington Post review of LAPHAM RISING'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114171398667105512</id><published>2006-03-06T22:43:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-03-06T22:46:26.683-08:00</updated><title type='text'>From " The Terror Last Time" in The New Yorker</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/060313crbo_books"&gt;http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/060313crbo_books&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In William Dean Howells’s 1890 novel “A Hazard of New Fortunes,” an old German socialist named Lindau rails against capitalism so bitterly that he upsets a friend. Lindau apologizes, saying that his bark is worse than his bite—or, in Howells’s rendition of his thick German accent, “My parg is worse than my pidte.” At the time Howells was writing, however, many Americans had come to believe that a bark, if sharp enough, was tantamount to a bite. In his opinion, this confusion of word and deed had caused innocent men in Chicago to be hanged.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On May 4, 1886, several anarchists had addressed a crowd in the Haymarket, a square in Chicago two blocks long where farmers sold produce. When nearly a hundred and eighty policemen arrived to break up the rally, someone threw a bomb, and the police opened fire. At least seven patrolmen died, and at least four civilians. Over the next few weeks, the authorities rounded up and detained hundreds of the city’s anarchists. Eight men were put on trial for murder, the most prominent of whom were Albert Parsons and August Spies (pronounced “Spees”). Parsons led the city’s English-speaking anarchists, and Spies the German-speaking ones. Aside from Parsons and a teamster named Samuel Fielden, the defendants were of German ethnicity: Michael Schwab had assisted Spies in editing the movement’s German-language newspapers; George Engel and Adolph Fischer had belonged to a militant cell; Louis Lingg, a wild young man, had dabbled in bomb-making; and Oscar Neebe, a yeast-maker, had served on a few anarchist committees.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The prosecution never proved that any of the eight had planned, committed, or even known in advance about the Haymarket bombing. Instead, it relied on their words. All of them had praised violence in the cause of socioeconomic justice. “If we would achieve our liberation,” Parsons had told a crowd of protesters in April of 1885, “every man must lay by a part of his wages, buy a Colt’s navy revolver, a Winchester rifle, and learn how to make and use dynamite.” The prosecution argued that anarchism itself constituted a conspiracy to commit murder, and the jurors agreed, sentencing all but one of the defendants to death. The person who actually threw the bomb was never identified.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;William Morris, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Friedrich Engels signed petitions on behalf of the condemned, but Howells was virtually the only American writer to do so. “For many weeks, for months, it has not been for one hour out of my waking thoughts,” he wrote. “It blackens my life.” The newspapers mocked him for caring—over one of his heartfelt letters, the Chicago Tribune printed the snide headline “MR. HOWELLS IS DISTRESSED”—and called the anarchists Europe’s “scum and offal”; they were hyenas, wolves, vipers, savages, cutthroats, and fiends. One student of the Haymarket affair has called it “the first major ‘red-scare’ in American history.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In November, 1887, Parsons, Spies, Engel, and Fischer were hanged. Howells began “A Hazard of New Fortunes” and poured into it his disillusionment and anger. Toward the end of the book, a policeman clubs Lindau for heckling. At the same moment, a bullet strikes an innocent bystander, who examines, as his last sight on earth, this policeman’s face. “It was not bad, not cruel,” the dying man sees. “It was like the face of a statue, fixed, perdurable, a mere image of irresponsible and involuntary authority.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps Howells had in mind the statue that commemorated the Haymarket affair, a bronze policeman raising his right arm as if to calm a crowd. Chicago’s leading businessmen erected it in 1889, while Harper’s Weekly was serializing “A Hazard of New Fortunes.” By coincidence, in an anarchist parade a few years before, a float had carried an effigy of a policeman in the same pose, but with a club in its right hand, as if it were about to strike—as if gesture were about to become act.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;. . . .&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114171398667105512?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114171398667105512/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114171398667105512&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114171398667105512'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114171398667105512'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/03/from-terror-last-time-in-new-yorker.html' title='From &quot; The Terror Last Time&quot; in The New Yorker'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-114050319506850152</id><published>2006-02-20T22:24:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-02-20T22:26:35.086-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Lapham Rising from the New York Times</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/books/20masl.html"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/books/20masl.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From the &lt;i&gt;New York Times&lt;/i&gt; review of &lt;i&gt;Lapham Rising&lt;/i&gt; (free registration required):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Harry is old enough to be called "You old coot" by the local Realtor and "Señor Moment" by the carpenters working nearby. Why are the carpenters there? Because they are tormenting Harry with their noisy, annoying work on a house for Lapham, the show-off scion (with a nod to William Dean Howells's Silas Lapham) of an old Hamptons clan. "The family continued to reproduce like inbred collies until their heads became so pointed there was no room for brains, and yet fortunately, no need," Mr. Rosenblatt writes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At moments like that, "Lapham Rising" achieves its optimum acerbic edge. And Mr. Rosenblatt, who has written his first novel after much success as a nonfiction writer, Time essayist, television commentator and playwright, certainly knows his way around a self-important Hamptons social soirée. "And may I pose a question for all the guests to respond to one by one at the dinner table?" he furiously asks Lapham's assistant, in the wake of a dinner party invitation. "Something about the future of the Democratic Party? I love it when they do that during meals."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Harry is at his most sardonic in sending daily notes that read "Mr Lapham, tear down that house!" As he explains it, "I thought that the Reaganesque echo might appeal to him."&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-114050319506850152?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/114050319506850152/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=114050319506850152&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114050319506850152'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/114050319506850152'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/02/lapham-rising-from-new-york-times.html' title='Lapham Rising from the New York Times'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113941833075816755</id><published>2006-02-08T09:03:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-02-08T09:05:30.773-08:00</updated><title type='text'>1905 novel depicting Maine's 'degeneracy' ruffled feathers</title><content type='html'>From the &lt;a href="http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=128534"&gt;Bangor Daily News&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Everyone familiar with New England history knows that the Brahmins lived in Boston and the barbarians lived in Maine going way back to the 1600s. Sometimes the conflict between the two tribes resurfaced. Born in Massachusetts, Wasson associated with the Brahmin establishment even though he lived over the border in Kittery. He stepped forth in 1905 to tell the world just how low Maine had sunk.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"The Green Shay" described the results of the decline of the coastal shipping economy in the mythical town of Kentle's Harbor, where there had been "a most alarming exodus of the young and strong, and an equally alarming stay at home propensity on the part of the weak and worthless. It is natural selection the other end to - the survival of the unfittest." The result, Wasson discovered, was drunkenness, immorality, illiteracy and poverty. The population of fishermen who remained was sprinkled through with small-time crooks who robbed fishing gear and looted shipwrecks to pad their meager living.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; . . . &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Even though William Dean Howells, the famous author and editor and Wasson's neighbor at Kittery, had declared "The Green Shay" was right on target in its portrayal of "rural degeneracy," that didn't impress the editor of the Bangor Daily News, who seemed to be as upset with Hartt's appraisal in New England Magazine as with Wasson's book. "No man in his straight senses believes any such a thing," he declared vehemently. "As near as we can divine the motive for printing such a tale [Hartt's article], we think it was sent out in the hope of making a sale for a few copies of this libelous novel."&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113941833075816755?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113941833075816755/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113941833075816755&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113941833075816755'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113941833075816755'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/02/1905-novel-depicting-maines-degeneracy.html' title='1905 novel depicting Maine&apos;s &apos;degeneracy&apos; ruffled feathers'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113926530735372307</id><published>2006-02-06T14:34:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-02-06T14:35:07.353-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells Lecture</title><content type='html'>I'd like to pass along the word that Dr. Stan Marovitz will give a lecture on William Dean Howells in Cincinnati, OH on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 at 5:00 p.m. in the library's historic reading room in downtown Cincinnati (414 Walnut Street, 513.621.0717 for information or reservations.) Sherry and light refreshments are served at this event, and the cost is $20, $15 for Mercantile Library members.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you know, Dr. Marovitz is an expert on Howells, and will have much of interest to impart. We cordially invite you to join us.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;--Nancy Nolan&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113926530735372307?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113926530735372307/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113926530735372307&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113926530735372307'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113926530735372307'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/02/howells-lecture.html' title='Howells Lecture'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113890229237056807</id><published>2006-02-02T09:44:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-02-20T22:27:53.906-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Rise of Silas Lapham and Lapham Rising</title><content type='html'>Rise of Silas Lapham and Lapham Rising Hi, I discovered William Dean Howells early last year--read A Modern Instance, The Rise of Silas Lapham, Indian Summer and A Hazard of New Fortunes in rapid succession--and, first, would like to thank you for this marvelous, informative site for an author who is now one of my favorites. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Second, I was just perusing the net and discovered a review for a novel (to be issued in February) by Roger Rosenblatt called "Lapham Rising"--the title an obvious reference to The Rise of Silas Lapham--and the main character's name is Harry March--another nod to Howells, with his March family in A Hazard of New Fortunes. Here's a link to the review: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/01/22/opinionist_laph.php "&gt;http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/01/22/opinionist_laph.php &lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Looks like a genial satire (the plot indeed sounds like a revisionist update of The Rise of Silas Lapham), and thought I would share it with you; anything to bring the great Howells to the attention of modern readers is a good thing, no? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Best regards, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Joseph Jones pepe58season@yahoo.com 2/2/06&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113890229237056807?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113890229237056807/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113890229237056807&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113890229237056807'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113890229237056807'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/02/rise-of-silas-lapham-and-lapham-rising.html' title='Rise of Silas Lapham and Lapham Rising'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113674867121639154</id><published>2006-01-08T11:29:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-01-08T11:31:11.230-08:00</updated><title type='text'></title><content type='html'>Note should be taken of the obituary in the 30 December 2005 NYTimes.  It announces the death on the 20th of William White Howells (at age 97)in Kittery Point.  W W Howells was the son of John Mead Howells and the grandson of William Dean Howells.  He was a distinguished physical anthropologist.  Interesting family.  His father was a distinguished architect.  His grandfather was a distinguished novelist, editor and critic.  Good genes in the family.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;WDH has two delightful entries in the Letters after the birth of his grandson.  One is a couple of days later, the other is a sweet note to the baby written on Valentine's Day the next year. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are the two entries in Mildred Howells' &lt;span style="font-style:italic;"&gt;Life in Letters&lt;/span&gt;.  The first was on Valentine's Day of 1909.  She notes that it "was written by Howells to his elder grandson on his first St. Valentine's Day:"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To Billie&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear little Child whose count of days&lt;br /&gt; Is of like number with my years,&lt;br /&gt;I Have but rounded on my ways,&lt;br /&gt;  And in your start my goal appears.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My hopes have been what yours shall be,&lt;br /&gt;  Your joys to come in turn were mine;&lt;br /&gt;May the same love in you and me&lt;br /&gt;  Keep us each other's Valentine. &lt;br /&gt;                         W. D. Howells&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The other is a wonderful letter written on WDH"s own birthday in 1909:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;130 West 57th St.&lt;br /&gt;March 1, 1909&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dear Billy:&lt;br /&gt;   It is very sweet of you to send that birhday card, where we are walking toward the sunset together.  It is a lovely sunset, but sad, and the night is beyond it.  Hold fast to my hand, dear little boy, and keep me with you as long as you can.  Some day, I hope not too late, you will know how I love you.&lt;br /&gt;             Your aff'te grandfather,&lt;br /&gt;                    W. D. Howells&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gary Culbert&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113674867121639154?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113674867121639154/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113674867121639154&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113674867121639154'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113674867121639154'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2006/01/note-should-be-taken-of-obituary-in-30.html' title=''/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113409987080981957</id><published>2005-12-08T19:43:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2006-02-06T12:02:14.050-08:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells Rediscovered</title><content type='html'>Howells Rediscovered&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200512u/william-dean-howells"&gt;http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200512u/william-dean-howells&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A collection of articles by and about The Atlantic's third editor, William Dean Howells, celebrates his contributions to the magazine and American literature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;.....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;O f all the men of letters who took the helm at The Atlantic Monthly in its first fifty years, perhaps its most prolific and well-known was William Dean Howells—at least in his day. In our time, however, Howells is relatively unknown, especially when compared with the writers he helped bring to national prominence—Mark Twain and Henry James, among others. But a new Howells biography by Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson, published this year, has returned this author of some forty novels to the literary spotlight. In light of the renewed interest in Howells and in honor of The Atlantic's upcoming 150th anniversary, we've collected a few written portraits of the editor along with some of Howells's writing from the magazine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When Howells arrived in Boston for the first time in 1860, as a twenty-three-year-old self-educated journalist from very unliterary Ohio, he would hardly have seemed a likely heir to The Atlantic's editorship. Boston was the epicenter of the literary culture Howells revered and hoped to join, and home to some of his favorite authors—Emerson, Hawthorne, and Longfellow. Several of Howells's poems had been published in The Atlantic by its editor James Russell Lowell, who saw Howells as a western writer with significant promise. Howells visited Lowell at his home in Cambridge soon after reaching Boston. In "First Encounters: William Dean Howells and the Brahmins," Nancy Caldwell Sorel describes that afternoon meeting, in which Lowell took Howells under his wing. Howells was invited to dinner at the Parker House that night, where he met two of the magazine's other leading figures—Oliver Wendell Holmes, a physician, writer, and frequent contributor, and James T. Fields, the publisher. Howells later recalled in a letter to his father, "Lowell and Holmes both seemed to take me by the hands, and the Autocrat [Holmes], about the time the coffee came in, began to talk about the apostolic succession." &lt;br /&gt;[The rest is available only to subscribers]&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113409987080981957?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113409987080981957/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113409987080981957&amp;isPopup=true' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113409987080981957'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113409987080981957'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/12/howells-rediscovered.html' title='Howells Rediscovered'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-113278594802507763</id><published>2005-11-23T14:44:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2005-11-23T14:45:48.036-08:00</updated><title type='text'>"Walloping" Dean Howells and  the Johnson-Jeffries fight</title><content type='html'>From &lt;a href="http://www.thesweetscience.com/boxing-article/2895/johnson-jeffries-part-full-house/"&gt;http://www.thesweetscience.com/boxing-article/2895/johnson-jeffries-part-full-house/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Far more famous "expert writers" covering for various papers were Corbett, Robert Fitzsimmons, Abe Attell, Battling Nelson, Tommy Burns, Frank Gotch and William Muldoon, an ex‑wrestler with more than a nodding acquaintance with a punch in the nose. Reviewing that list, author Beach lamented that there were not more of his literary lot. "I lament at the absence of 'Walloping' Dean Howells of New England. He may not possess the literary style of Joe Choynski or an Abe Attell, but he has a certain following nevertheless. And 'Battling' Howey James, the Devonshire Demon...His diction is stilted, perhaps, and lacking the fluent ease and grace of 'Philadelphia Jack' O’Brien, but he is entitled to be heard from."&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-113278594802507763?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/113278594802507763/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=113278594802507763&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113278594802507763'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/113278594802507763'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/11/walloping-dean-howells-and-johnson.html' title='&quot;Walloping&quot; Dean Howells and  the Johnson-Jeffries fight'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-112379190551325034</id><published>2005-08-11T13:23:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-08-11T13:25:05.523-07:00</updated><title type='text'>From Columnist James O. Goldsborough in Voice of San Diego</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&amp;b=312470&amp;ct=1286717"&gt;http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=euLTJbMUKvH&amp;b=312470&amp;ct=1286717&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To honor his 75th birthday a century ago, William Dean Howells was asked by the city of New York to make a statement to be read in every city school. Howells, a leading novelist and critic of the day whose column in Harper's gave him a nationwide audience, decided to speak out on the Spanish-American war, which, until Bush's war, occupied the highest place in America's pantheon of bad wars. Here's part of what Howells said:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;"When our country is wrong she is worse than other countries when they are wrong, for she has more light than other countries, and we somehow ought to make her feel that we are sorry and ashamed for her."&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-112379190551325034?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/112379190551325034/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=112379190551325034&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/112379190551325034'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/112379190551325034'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/08/from-columnist-james-o-goldsborough-in.html' title='From Columnist James O. Goldsborough in Voice of San Diego'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111996344434397139</id><published>2005-06-28T05:54:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-28T05:57:24.346-07:00</updated><title type='text'>In a time of dissent, what is patriotism? from Boston.com</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/06/28/in_a_time_of_dissent_what_is_patriotism/"&gt;In a time of dissent, what is patriotism?&lt;/a&gt;      &lt;p class="byline"&gt;&lt;span&gt;By Peter S. Canellos  | &lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="date"&gt;June 28, 2005&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;     &lt;p&gt;WASHINGTON -- When the American literary lion William Dean Howells turned 75, in 1912, New York's superintendent of libraries asked him for some words of wisdom that could be read to children. Howells chose a subject that bristles with tension even now, 93 years later, as a vastly different United States prepares to celebrate its own birthday.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;''While I would wish you to love America most because it's your home, I would have you love the whole world and think of all the people in it as your countrymen," Howells wrote. ''You will hear people more foolish than wicked say 'Our country, right or wrong,' but that is a false patriotism and bad Americanism. When our country is wrong she is worse than other countries when they are wrong, for she has more light than other countries, and we somehow ought to make her feel that we are sorry and ashamed for her."&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111996344434397139?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111996344434397139/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111996344434397139&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111996344434397139'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111996344434397139'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/in-time-of-dissent-what-is-patriotism.html' title='In a time of dissent, what is patriotism? from Boston.com'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111919797760770477</id><published>2005-06-19T09:13:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-19T09:20:01.530-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Howells in Timeline Magazine</title><content type='html'>The October-December 2005 (volume 21, numbers&lt;br /&gt;                5-6) issue of &lt;i&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/publicat/timeline/index.html"&gt;Timeline&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.ohiohistory.org/resource/publicat/timeline/index.html"&gt;,&lt;br /&gt;                a publication of the Ohio Historical Society,&lt;/a&gt; has an article&lt;br /&gt;                about Howells: &amp;quot;Dean of American Letters: William Dean Howells,&amp;quot; by&lt;br /&gt;                Victoria Nelson. The piece includes photographs of William Cooper&lt;br /&gt;                and Mary Dean Howells, the young Howells family (WDH, Elinor,&lt;br /&gt;                and the children), an architectural sketch of &amp;quot;Red Top,&amp;quot; and&lt;br /&gt;              pictures of Howells and his contemporaries.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111919797760770477?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111919797760770477/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111919797760770477&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111919797760770477'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111919797760770477'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/howells-in-timeline-magazine.html' title='Howells in Timeline Magazine'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111843554651959105</id><published>2005-06-10T13:30:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-10T13:33:06.686-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Adam Gopnik's Review of new Howells Biography</title><content type='html'>&lt;p class="descender"&gt;From  &lt;a href="http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?050613crat_atlarge"&gt;Adam Gopnik's review in &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;The New Yorker&lt;/span&gt; of Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson's new biography of Howells&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p class="descender"&gt;Almost the first thing that every essay about the nineteenth-century American novelist William Dean Howells announces is that no one writes essays about William Dean Howells anymore; his eclipse is his identity. Yet in every decade since his death, in 1920, he has found strong advocates—and, although one might think that he needs to be argued for because he is distant from us, each new Howells has oddly resembled the critic who offers him. Howells is somehow both the road not taken and the street where we live.&lt;/p&gt;        &lt;p&gt;For the critic and historian Van Wyck Brooks, writing in the nineteen-thirties, Howells was a wise but essentially sunny New England patriot, who had absorbed enough European culture to be serious without absorbing so much as to be cynical, the model of a modernized but not corrupted American author. For Alfred Kazin, in the forties, Howells was a democratic poet, an urban rhapsodist, a realist with a singing heart. For Lionel Trilling, writing in the fifties, Howells was a trembling modern liberal, with a strong social conscience but a fastidious distaste for democratic ecstasies, a writer who, like Trilling, grasped the disappearance of tragedy in bourgeois society, yet lamented its loss. For John Updike, in the eighties, Howells was the original and still unvanquished prophet of the “anti-novel”—the American novelist who recognized the middling nature of American society, and who, rejecting both romantic hysteria and a too inward-turning formalism, made all that could be made of the commonplace life of the American middle classes. Since the fate of most writers is oblivion, as the fate of most species is extinction, this is not at all a bad haul.&lt;/p&gt;        &lt;p&gt;Now, in the first full-force scholarly biography in decades—“William Dean Howells: A Writer’s Life” (California; $34.95), by Susan Goodman and Carl Dawson—we have Howells more or less whole and more or less straight. Goodman and Dawson are professors at the University of Delaware, and though their biography, respectful and even reverent, is easily the best that Howells has received, it seems unlikely to alter his eclipse. One actually feels a little sorry that &lt;span class="italic"&gt;something&lt;/span&gt;—a homoerotic scandal à la Eakins, an incident of cross-dressing, a moment of possible incest, a spanking given or received—hasn’t come up to help his cause. A good, gentle, conscientious Howells remains admirable but not very vital. There &lt;span class="italic"&gt;are&lt;/span&gt; dark shadows and grief in his life, particularly the illness and death of his beloved daughter, Winifred, who languished for years, suffering from one of those nameless Alice James-type diseases. But Winifred’s illness remains decently unsensationalized in the new book, and the possibility—which more Freudian, or merely Chekhovian, biographers might have entertained—that her illness was some kind of protest against the constant and exhausting public praise of her father’s wholesomeness and rectitude is left politely unconsidered.&lt;/p&gt;        &lt;p&gt;So Howells remains without a wound to make him draw his bow, and a woundless writer feels too remote from us to be much loved. What did Howells lust for, what songs made him smile, what, as they say in Hollywood script conferences, did he &lt;span class="italic"&gt;want&lt;/span&gt;? “To be a leading man of letters” is, really, no one’s answer to that question. The human questions seem, for so humane a writer, still unanswered. What his new biographers do, superbly, is to situate Howells in the places where he found himself. It turns out that Howells’s is a tale of four cities: Columbus, Ohio, where he came of age, and which in his mind always represented virtue; Boston, which was his home during his salad days, and which represented intellect; Venice, which represented old Europe and sex. And then New York, which represented—well, what New York represented for Howells is a deep question. Answering it might give us a Howells for these nervous noughts: a poet of middle-class precariousness, of terrorist threats and immigrant renewals, of tarnished gilded ages and plutocratic triumph and liberal embattlement. Howells was the first writer to intuit that the circumstances of New York City—its density, its devotion to commerce and to the commercial laws of chance and hazard and hope—demanded a new way of writing, outside the model even of the radical realist, Zolaesque novel. His was the first “delirious” New York in American prose, and he gives us still something of the sound and taste of our own delirium.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111843554651959105?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111843554651959105/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111843554651959105&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111843554651959105'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111843554651959105'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/adam-gopniks-review-of-new-howells.html' title='Adam Gopnik&apos;s Review of new Howells Biography'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111799050248901123</id><published>2005-06-05T09:54:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T09:55:02.493-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Literary Map of New York City</title><content type='html'>See also the Howells entry in the  Literary Map of New York City in the New York Times: &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/20050605_BOOKMAP_GRAPHIC/"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/20050605_BOOKMAP_GRAPHIC/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111799050248901123?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111799050248901123/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111799050248901123&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111799050248901123'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111799050248901123'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/literary-map-of-new-york-city.html' title='Literary Map of New York City'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798178260096255</id><published>2005-06-05T07:29:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:29:42.600-07:00</updated><title type='text'>The Address of the Xenophon</title><content type='html'>From Randy Cohen, "We Mapped Manhattan," in&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt; The New York Times&lt;/span&gt; &lt;a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05RAND01.html?"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05RAND01.html? (free registration required):&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Some mysteries remain -- the apartment of J. D. Salinger's nomadic Glass family, who seem to move from East to West Side; the address of the Xenophon, where William Dean Howells's March family found a sublet in ''A Hazard of New Fortunes.'' Nor could we confidently pin down the office of Bartleby the Scrivener, despite many good suggestions from readers, including Ann Sullivan-Cross's. Having had a job at 14 Wall Street -- ''like working in a dead letter office, at the depths of a dark world governed by dark laws'' -- she felt sure she recognized the spot; she pointed out, moreover, that Melville's brother Allan had a law office at that address.&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798178260096255?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798178260096255/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798178260096255&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798178260096255'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798178260096255'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/address-of-xenophon.html' title='The Address of the Xenophon'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798172451932512</id><published>2005-06-05T07:28:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:28:44.520-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Postmodern Fog Has Begun to Lift</title><content type='html'>Postmodern Fog Has Begun to Lift&lt;br /&gt; from the &lt;a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-dickstein26may26,0,3274865.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions"&gt;Los Angeles Times&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; [ . . . ] Postmodern theorists, promoting a fluid sense of identity, were only the latest step in unhinging art and discourse from any stable sense of the real world. Just as political upheaval left people physically insecure and globalization left them economically insecure, postmodernism was part of a complex of changes that left them feeling morally insecure, uncertain about who they were or what they really knew.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; For some, there was a newfound freedom in all this. But many Americans today, sensing that the foundations of their world have crumbled, feel a deep nostalgia for something solid and real. Surrounded by a media culture, adrift in virtual reality, they seek assurance from their own senses. They turn to what John Dewey called "the quest for certainty."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I see evidence of this in my own field of literary studies, which has long been in the vanguard of postmodernism. In his book "After Theory," a widely discussed obituary for decades of obfuscation that he himself had helped to promote, Terry Eagleton mocks "a certain postmodern fondness for not knowing what you think about anything."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; To understand the changes that shook the modern world, my students and colleagues have returned in recent years to long-neglected writers in the American realist tradition, including William Dean Howells, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Sinclair Lewis, Edith Wharton and Willa Cather. For readers like me who grew up in the second half of the 20th century on the unsettling innovations of modernism, and who were attuned to its atmosphere of crisis and disillusionment, the firm social compass of these earlier writers has come as a surprise. [. . . ]&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798172451932512?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798172451932512/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798172451932512&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798172451932512'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798172451932512'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/postmodern-fog-has-begun-to-lift.html' title='Postmodern Fog Has Begun to Lift'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798168592128334</id><published>2005-06-05T07:27:00.001-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:28:05.923-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Indian Summer</title><content type='html'>From Newsday.com: Recommended reading&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; A lesser-known entry in the Americans-in-Europe genre, the school of novels ruled by Edith Wharton and Henry James, William Dean Howells' comedy of manners, "Indian Summer," (New York Review Books, $14) is as sublime as they come. As the title implies, this is a book about a season on the cusp, specifically the season of middle-age in the life of Howells' hero, Theodore Colville. A 40-year-old Midwestern newspaper publisher who finds himself in Florence after selling his business, Colville runs into another American, Lina Bowen, whom he knew years before as the intimate of a woman he loved who jilted him. Mrs. Bowen, now widowed, is spending the season in Florence with her young daughter, Effie, and a friend's 20-year-old daughter, Imogene.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  It should be plain from that setup that Colville and Imogene fall for each other. Howells' description of this mutual infatuation is like listening to a melody that's a few beats off the rhythm. No one can quite surrender to the sweetness because no one really believes in it. From the moment Colville and Imogene 'fess up their feelings, they realize they're trapped.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; In the finest line of her ace introduction, Wendy Lesser says, "Middle age ... is the period of life at which one first senses what it means to become a part of the past."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;  "Indian Summer" is not, however, a tragic novel. Ultimately, it's one of those rare works (like Ron Shelton's film "Bull Durham") about the deep, unexpected satisfactions to be found in compromise.  [. . . ]&lt;span style="font-weight: bold;"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798168592128334?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798168592128334/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798168592128334&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798168592128334'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798168592128334'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/indian-summer.html' title='Indian Summer'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798164445283591</id><published>2005-06-05T07:27:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:27:24.453-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Rediscovering Howells</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;From the &lt;a href="http://www.nysun.com/article/14365"&gt;New York Sun&lt;/a&gt; (unfortunately, only paid subscribers can access much more than this):&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;Other than English majors and literary scholars, who reads William Dean Howells? If your project is 19th-century American fiction, then Hawthorne, Melville, James, Twain, Crane, and the early Wharton and Dreiser head the list. Yet Howells wrote magnificent travel books (he was U. S. consul in Venice), and at least three novels that deserve their place in the canon. "A Modern Instance" (1882) is a shrewd and diverting study of a corrupt and womanizing Boston journalist, Bartley Hubbard; "The Rise of Silas Lapham" (1885) dramatizes the fate of a self-made Vermont businessman; "A Hazard of New Fortunes" (1890), set in New York City, reflects profound misgivings about rampant capitalism.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798164445283591?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798164445283591/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798164445283591&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798164445283591'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798164445283591'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/rediscovering-howells.html' title='Rediscovering Howells'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798151731683509</id><published>2005-06-05T07:24:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:25:17.316-07:00</updated><title type='text'>WDH and Vaudeville</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;From  &lt;a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_urbanities-vaudeville.html"&gt;"Vaudeville's brief, shining moment" at City-Journal.org&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;In the new century, these performances that cost so little—rarely more than $1— and gave so much, beguiled not just the common folk but intellectuals, too. As novelist William Dean Howells wrote in &lt;i&gt;Harper’s&lt;/i&gt;, “I am an inveterate vaudeville-goer, for the simple reason that I find better acting, and better drama, than you get on your legitimate stage.” &lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798151731683509?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798151731683509/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798151731683509&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798151731683509'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798151731683509'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/wdh-and-vaudeville.html' title='WDH and Vaudeville'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13435934.post-111798146450773679</id><published>2005-06-05T07:23:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2005-06-05T07:24:24.510-07:00</updated><title type='text'>W. Ninth St. turns 180</title><content type='html'>&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"&gt;From &lt;a href="http://www.thevillager.com/villager_99/wninthstturns180.html" defanged_style="color: blue"&gt;W. Ninth St. turns 180: Highlights from a history of socialites &lt;b&gt;...&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (NY Times; free registration required)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;  &lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:85%;"&gt;Other wordsmiths arrived, shuffling up and down W. Ninth like a pack of cards in pursuit of Lady Luck. In 1870, author Bret Harte got comfy at 16 W. Ninth on his sister’s sofa. In 1888, William Dean Howells breezed through 46 W. Ninth St. for three months. For a few months in 1918, Edna St. Vincent Millay and her sister Norma sniffled in unheated lodgings on W. Ninth when her first book, “Renascence,” was published&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;     &lt;div class="postinfo"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.motime.com/#" onclick="mw=openWin('http://www.motime.com/myblog/view_comments/8977/433720',mw); return false;" title="Click to comment or to read comments in a pop-up window"&gt; &lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/13435934-111798146450773679?l=howellsinthenews.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/feeds/111798146450773679/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=13435934&amp;postID=111798146450773679&amp;isPopup=true' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798146450773679'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/13435934/posts/default/111798146450773679'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://howellsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/06/w-ninth-st-turns-180.html' title='W. Ninth St. turns 180'/><author><name>wdh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/00545583790016015304</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>
