Main Street - by Sinclair Lewis (Paperback)

About the Book

New annotated edition of Main Street, a complex and compelling work which established Lewis as an important figure in twentieth-century American literature.

Book Synopsis

Young college graduate Carol Kennicott moves from a big city to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, the small town from which her new husband hails. Imbued with ideals of urban improvement, she dreams of redesigning her adopted village, but her efforts are thwarted by the narrow-mindedness, pettiness and conventionality of the locals, who conspire against her and deride all her endeavours.

An enormous commercial and critical success on its first publication in 1920, Main Street - regarded by many as Sinclair Lewis's best novel - delivers a scathing satire on the American dream, and is invaluable as a document of pre-Prohibition Middle America.

Review Quotes

"A novel, yes, but so unusual as not to fall easily into a class. There is practically no plot, yet the book is absorbing. It is so much like life itself, so extraordinarily real" - 1920's review of Main Street by the New York Times.

About the Author

The American novelist and playwright Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) is best remembered for Main Street and Babbitt, two satirical novels criticizing the complacency of American society and the excesses of capitalism during the interwar period.