Kingsblood Royal (1947) marked the return of Sinclair Lewis as one of the most controversial novelists in the USA. After his series of sensational novels including Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), and Elmer Gantry (1927), Lewis continued to publish novels, but only It Can’t Happen Here (1935), a dystopian fantasy about Fascism in America, had brought him the kind of widespread notoriety that had marked his career in the 1920s.

With Kingsblood Royal Lewis returned to centre stage by attacking racism. The novel tells the story of a young veteran of World War II who has returned to his home town, the mythical small city of Grand Republic, Minnesota. The son

This article in full comprises 1211 words but only the first 150 or so words are available to non-members.

All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here.

Published 10 December 2003

Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "Kingsblood Royal". The Literary Encyclopedia. 10 December 2003.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4222, accessed 20 November 2009.]