William Dean Howells

William Dean Howells constitutes a curious case in American literature, and that literature, like any national literature if closely examined, has a good many curious cases. Howells's curious place is that of an author whose presence loomed very large during most of his lifetime and who was quickly forgotten after his death. Every literature has its popular successes whose names are forgotten within a generation or less. Yet, there are differences between Howells and any other examples that might be brought forth. One difference is in the sheer volume and variety of Howells's work: 137 volumes of one sort and another, 35 novels in all, his name in leading periodicals issue after issue for some 40 years. Another difference is how high he stood in his time, the foremost critic and editor in America, and a fiction writer placed within those two unforgotten American writers, Mark Twain and Henry James. A third difference is that among academic scholars, Howells is still regarded as a major writer, notwithstanding his neglect by the common reader. - Preface.