Our Mr Wrenn Annotated

CONTENTS:- A novel by the Writer Literature Nobel Prize, Sinclair Lewis- Enriched by "The Significance of Sinclair Lewis" by Stuart P. Sherman- Banquet Speech (Acceptance Nobel Prize) & Biographical notes includedOur Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man is a 1914 novel by Sinclair Lewis and the first to be published under his real name.Mr. Wrenn, an employee of a novelty company quits his job after inheriting a fortune from his father. He decides to go traveling.The book did not get major reviews but most of the reviews said it was a fresh first novel with a different slant. The New York Times said "This rather whimsical story is well off the usual line of fiction in its conception and especially in its leading character." and compared it to Charles Dickens. The Nation said that it was "a story of the ordinary, with an individuality which atones for a certain slowness in pace" and predicted "more telling works in the future." The American Review of Reviews said "The tired business man will find just the right antidote for weariness in 'Our Mr. Wrenn'." Boston Transcript said "A respectful consideration of the claims of plot and construction might be suggested as not out of place even when a person is making his first book 'a labor of love' as his publishers announce he is here doing."[6] Outlook said "Constructively the story is unsatisfactory, but it certainly arouses attention--and exception also."The book was reprinted after Sinclair Lewis gained popularity in later years.The Significance of Sinclair Lewis. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Excerpt from The Significance of Sinclair Lewis:...If we had applied ourselves more diligently to the search for a deliverer, we might have observed that Mr. Lewis was coming, far back in 1914, when he published Our Mr. Wrenn --as the seductive title suggests, a merrily bubbling story with a "happy ending", somewhat in the vein of H. G. Wells' s Kipps and Mr. Polly. Mr. Wrenn, age thirty-five, sales-entry clerk in the Souvenir and Art Novelty Company of New York, is described as "a meek little bachelor--a person of inconspicuous blue ready-made suits, and a small unsuccessful mustache."...

More than 100 women poets of the 18th century are represented in this anthology. Written by duchesses, ladies and working women, the poems speak with vigour and immediacy of the world they lived in and their experiences of town and country.

Sinclair Lewis Remembered is a collection of reminiscences and memoirs by contemporaries, friends, and associates of Lewis that offers a revealing and intimate portrait of this complex and significant Nobel Prize–winning American writer. After a troubled career as a student at Yale, Sinclair Lewis turned to literature as his livelihood, publishing numerous works of popular fiction that went unnoticed by critics. With the 1920s, however, came Main Street, Lewis’s first critical success, which was soon followed by Babbitt, Arrowsmith, Elmer Gantry, and Dodsworth—five of the most influential social novels in the history of American letters, all written within one decade. Nevertheless, Lewis’s Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930 led to controversy. Writers such as Theodore Dreiser, William Faulkner, and Thomas Mann expressed their dissent with the decision. Unable to match his previous success, Lewis suffered from alcoholism, alienated colleagues, and embraced unpopular political positions. The nadir for Lewis’s literary reputation was Mark Schorer’s 1961 biography, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life, which helped to legitimize the dismissal of Lewis’s entire body of work. Recent scholarly research has seen a resurgence of interest in Lewis and his writings. The multiple and varied perspectives found in Sinclair Lewis Remembered, edited by Gary Scharnhorst and Matthew Hofer, illustrate uncompromised glimpses of a complicated writer who should not be forgotten. The more than 115 contributions to this volume include reminiscences by Upton Sinclair, Edna Ferber, Alfred Harcourt, Samuel Putnam, H. L. Mencken, John Hersey, Hallie Flanagan, and many others.

An Absurd Vice, the critical biography of Cesare Pavese by his friend and fellow-writer Davide Lajolo, has been celebrated in italy since its publication there in 1960. With well-balanced affection and blame, it presents a portrait of the prize-winning author of The House on the Hill, Work Wearies, and other books of fiction and poetry, dedicated editor at the Einaudi Publishing House, and renowned translator of such classics as David Copperfield and Moby-Dick, who was yet unable to shake what he ruefully called his 'absurd vice'-a lifelong obsession with suicide. e

Most books written on Gilbert and Sullivan have focused on the authors rather than on their work. Examining all 14 operas in detail, this book offers a fresh look at the works themselves.