Henry Blake Fuller

"The Cliff-Dwellers" is a novel set among the skyscrapers and frenetic business culture of 1890s Chicago. It follows the life of George Ogden, a promising young man from Boston, who moves "out west" to make his fortune. He finds a job in a bank headquartered at the Clifton Building, the newest skyscraper in the city, where he soon realizes that its eighteen floors are already full with men and women who came there to achieve the same goal, often by any means. The book represents a vivid and realistic portrayal of capitalism and social climbers in Chicago, with the strong emphasis on the city itself, which is presented as a force that breaks down anyone who isn't ready to play by its merciless rules.

The story is set in the present on the campus of a university in fictional Churchton, Illinois, modeled on Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where Bertram Cope, an attractive young English instructor, is spending a year completing his thesis. While he has a certain sophistication, he is socially unaware, easily impressed by the wealthy and their comforts. Lacking confidence, Cope is too careful and self-conscious as he tries to find his place in local society. Cope's primary emotional attachment is to his college chum Arthur Lemoyne, who comes to live with him. Will Arthur and Bertram ever re-unite? What all has fate in store for Bertram?

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "With the Procession" by Henry Blake Fuller. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.