(1935), while artistically inferior to Sinclair Lewis's great novels of the 1920s, proved that Lewis's skilful satire was still able to capture the attention of the American public. In this dystopian work, Lewis effectively pointed out the dangers of German and Italian Fascism by transplanting the movement to the USA. In addition to its influence on the body politic as a book, the novel inspired a play that was widely performed all across the nation under the auspices of the Federal Theater Project.
Hastily written in only a few months, It Can't Happen Here is the story of a small town Vermont newspaper editor, Doremus Jessup, who has been the voice of liberalism in the area his newspaper serves. With the nation still in the grip of the Great Depression, the electorate
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Citation: Fleming, Robert E.. "It Can't Happen Here". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 November 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4425, accessed 23 April 2024.]
