Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

Robert E. Fleming (University of New Mexico)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1922

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Recommended Reading

With

Babbitt

(1922) Sinclair Lewis consolidated the reputation he had earned with his first best-selling novel,

Main Street

(1920). Like

Main Street

Babbitt

not only became a best seller, but it generated controversy, became a US cultural phenomenon, and eventually contributed a new word to the language. (Although the word “babbitt” has come to mean a “smugly conventional person,” George F. Babbitt is a more complex individual – and more troubled – than the dictionary definition would suggest.)

Babbitt

is the story of a middle-aged real estate broker who faces a series of psychological crises that reveal to him the emptiness of his superficially successful and prosperous life. As a setting for the novel, Lewis created an imaginary city, Zenith, and an imaginary mid-western…

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1324 words

Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "Babbitt". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=10532, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt

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