Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Sinclair Lewis
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Later years== [[File:Browne-Lewis-1943.jpg|thumb|Sinclair Lewis examines [[Lewis Browne]]'s new novel as they begin their 1943 lecture tour.]] [[File:Photo Florence, The American writer Sinclair Lewis on the terrace of the villa "La Costa" in the San Miniato area 1950 - Touring Club Italiano 11 5531.jpg|thumb|Sinclair Lewis on the terrace of the villa "La Costa" in the San Miniato area in Tuscany]] After winning the Nobel Prize, Lewis wrote eleven more novels, ten of which appeared in his lifetime. The best remembered is ''[[It Can't Happen Here]]'' (1935), a novel about the election of a [[fascist]] to the American presidency. After praising Dreiser as "pioneering", that he "more than any other man, marching alone, usually unappreciated, often hated, has cleared the trail from Victorian and Howellsian timidity and gentility in American fiction to honesty and boldness and passion of life" in his Nobel Lecture in December 1930,<ref name=":1" /> in March 1931 Lewis publicly accused Dreiser of plagiarizing a book by Dorothy Thompson, Lewis's wife, which led to a well-publicized fight, wherein Dreiser repeatedly slapped Lewis. Thompson initially made the accusation in 1928 regarding her work "The New Russia" and Dreiser's "Dreiser Goes to Russia", though ''The New York Times'' also linked the dispute to competition between Dreiser and Lewis over the Nobel Prize.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1931/03/21/98325372.html?smid=tw-nytbooks&smtyp=cur&pageNumber=11|title=Lewis Is Slapped by Dreiser in Club; Principals in 'He Who Gets Slapped'|date=March 21, 1931|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 21, 2018|page=11}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/literaryfeudscen00arth/page/66|title=Literary feuds : a century of celebrated quarrels from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe|last=Arthur|first=Anthony|date=2002|publisher=Thomas Dunne Books|isbn=9780312272098|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/literaryfeudscen00arth/page/66 66–72]|oclc=49698991|url-access=registration}}</ref> Dreiser fired back that Sinclair's 1925 novel ''[[Arrowsmith (novel)|Arrowsmith]]'' (adapted later that year as a [[Arrowsmith (film)|feature film]]) was unoriginal and that Dreiser himself was first approached to write it, which was disputed by the wife of ''Arrowsmith''<nowiki/>'s subject, microbiologist Dr. [[Paul de Kruif]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/03/25/archives/lewis-calls-witness-to-challenge-dreiser-gets-mrs-de-kruifs-denial.html|title=Lewis Calls Witness to Challenge Dreiser; Gets Mrs. de Kruif's Denial That Rival Author Was Asked First to Write 'Arrowsmith'.|date=March 25, 1931|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 21, 2018}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> The feud carried on for some months.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1931/07/23/archives/boast-of-publicity-defied-by-dreiser-novelist-rebuked-by-court-as.html|title=Boast of Publicity Defied by Dreiser; Novelist Rebuked by Court as He Passes Lie in Connection With Slapping of Lewis|date=July 23, 1931|work=The New York Times|access-date=March 21, 2018}}</ref> In 1944, Lewis campaigned to have Dreiser recognized by the [[American Academy of Arts and Letters]].<ref name=":2" /> After an alcoholic binge in 1937, Lewis checked in for treatment to the [[Austen Riggs Center]], a psychiatric hospital in [[Stockbridge, Massachusetts]]. His doctors gave him a blunt assessment that he needed to decide "whether he was going to live without alcohol or die by it, one or the other."<ref name="Lingeman, 420-422">Lingeman, 420–422</ref> Lewis checked out after ten days, lacking any "fundamental understanding of his problem", as one of his physicians wrote to a colleague.<ref name="Lingeman, 420-422"/> In the autumn of 1940, Lewis visited his old acquaintance, [[William Ellery Leonard]], in Madison, Wisconsin. Leonard arranged a meeting with the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a tour of the campus. Lewis immediately became enthralled with the university and the city and offered to remain and teach a course in creative writing in the upcoming semester. For a month he was quite enamored of his professorial role.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://reflections.mndigital.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15160coll1/id/1399/rec/8|title=Letter from Sinclair Lewis to Marcella Powers, October 7, 1940 :: St. Cloud State University – Sinclair Lewis Letters to Marcella Powers|website=reflections.mndigital.org|access-date=July 13, 2016}}</ref> Suddenly, on November 7, after giving only five classes to his select group of 24 students, he announced that he had taught them all that he knew. He left Madison the next day.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55c-Ur5inUsC&pg=PA494|title=The University of Wisconsin: A Pictorial History|last=Hove|first=Arthur|date=1991|publisher=University of Wisconsin Press|isbn=9780299130008|pages=493–495}}</ref> In the 1940s, Lewis and rabbi-turned-popular-author [[Lewis Browne]] frequently appeared on the lecture platform together,<ref>Chamberlain, John (October 7, 1943) "Books of the Times". Review of ''See What I Mean?'' by Lewis Browne. ''[[The New York Times]]''.</ref> touring the United States and debating before audiences of as many as 3,000 people, addressing such questions as "Has the Modern Woman Made Good?", "The Country Versus the City", "Is the Machine Age Wrecking Civilization?", and "Can Fascism Happen Here?". The pair were described as "the [[Gallagher and Shean]] of the lecture circuit" by Lewis biographer Richard Lingeman.<ref>Lingeman, 455</ref> In the early 1940s, Lewis lived in Duluth, Minnesota.<ref name="duluthbudgeteer.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com/content/column-while-living-duluth-mansion-famous-author-penned-book-about-race |title=Column: While living in Duluth mansion, famous author penned book about race | Duluth Budgeteer |access-date=June 1, 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701122157/http://www.duluthbudgeteer.com/content/column-while-living-duluth-mansion-famous-author-penned-book-about-race |archive-date=July 1, 2016 }}</ref> During this time, he wrote the novel ''Kingsblood Royal'' (1947), set in the fictional city of Grand Republic, Minnesota, an enlarged and updated version of Zenith.<ref name="duluthbudgeteer.com"/> It is based on the [[Ossian Sweet|Sweet Trials]] in [[Detroit]] in which an [[African-American]] doctor was denied the chance to purchase a house in a "white" section of the city. Lewis' creation of the novel was preceded by his introduction to the black community via [[Edward Francis Murphy]], a [[Society of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart (Josephites)|Josephite]] priest with whom he had attended school as a child.<ref>{{Cite web|last=McAllister|first=Jim|title=Essex County Chronicles: Late Salem priest had a remarkable life|url=https://www.salemnews.com/opinion/essex-county-chronicles-late-salem-priest-had-a-remarkable-life/article_8e625ecf-fc32-56cc-85c3-ee6130eaa96d.html|access-date=2021-08-01|website=Salem News|date=November 15, 2010 |language=en}}</ref> ''Kingsblood'' was a powerful and very early contribution to the [[civil rights movement]]. In 1943, Lewis went to Hollywood to work on a script with [[Dore Schary]], who had just resigned as executive head of [[Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer]]'s low-budget film department to concentrate on writing and producing his own films. The resulting screenplay was ''Storm In the West'', "a traditional American western"<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = Storm In the West|last1 = Lewis|first1 = Sinclair|publisher = Stein and Day|year = 1963|location = New York|last2 = Schary|first2 = Dore}}</ref> — except for the fact that it was also an allegory of World War II, with primary villain Hygatt ([[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]) and his henchmen Gribbles ([[Joseph Goebbels|Goebbels]]) and Gerrett ([[Hermann Göring|Goering]]) plotting to take over the Franson Ranch, the Poling Ranch, and so on. The screenplay was deemed too political by MGM studio executives and was shelved, and the film was never made. ''Storm In the West'' was finally published in 1963, with a foreword by Schary detailing the work's origins, the authors' creative process, and the screenplay's ultimate fate. Sinclair Lewis had been a frequent visitor to Williamstown, Massachusetts. In 1946, he rented Thorvale Farm on Oblong Road. While working on his novel ''Kingsblood Royal'', he purchased this summer estate and upgraded the [[Georgian architecture|Georgian mansion]] along with a farmhouse and many outbuildings. By 1948, Lewis had created a gentleman's farm consisting of {{Convert | 720 | acre}} of agricultural and forest land. His intended residence in Williamstown was short-lived because of his medical problems.<ref>{{Cite book|title = Before Carmel Came to the Berkshires|last = Gagnon, Order of the Carmelites|first = Pius M.|location = Courtesy of the Williamstown Historical Museum, 1095 Main Street, Williamstown, MA 01267.|pages = 19–22}}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)