Archiv der Kategorie: Howells, William Dean

The Son Of Royal Langbrith – William Dean Howells

Mr. Howells is at his best in this novel. There is in it the same perfection of finish, the same absolute sureness of technique, the same realism (to use an overworked word, but here used in its true sense, not meaning either nastiness or stupidity) which one is always sure to find in his work. But there is something more in this book than in some of his others – more strength, more interest, and a bigger, and successful, attempt to show the more emotional and more vital side of life. The plot is almost precisely that of Ibsen’s “Ghosts,” with the very great difference, however, that the young man turns … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Questionable Shapes – William Dean Howells

Boston had been busied with psychical research for some years, and Prof. William James has had a good deal to say about Mrs. Piper, so that it is not surprising after all to find Mr. W. D. Howells toying with the supernatural in his book ‘Questionable Shapes.’ Realists need not be startled – Mr. Howells is true to his colors and only takes his ghosts up with the tongs to hold them off as far as possible. His interest lies in the effect the ghost stories have on the bystanders, not in the ghosts themselves, in fact he tells only one ghost story, and that, one that may be explained away, in the three … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Letters Home – William Dean Howells

A group of people from Boston and inland towns of Iowa and New York spent the three months between December and March, 1901 – 1902, in New York City for different reasons. Their “letters home” to various relations and friends tell an ingenious story. The fascination of the great city tells upon them all, and excellent descriptions of the turn-of-the-century New York appear in all the letters.

Letters Home.

Format: eBook.

Letters Home.

ISBN: 9783849657758

Excerpt from the text:

I.

From Mrs. Otis Binning to Mrs. Walter Binning, Boston.

 New York, Dec. 12, 1901.

My Dear Margaret:

I am afraid it will not do, and that you will have your brother-in-law back on … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Literature And Life – William Dean Howells

One of the greatest rewards which literary fame has to give must be the power which it lends an author of being on intimate terms with his public. An author has won his spurs, his public know and love him, and he can then, if he will, talk to them in print as he might chat with friends. Trivial subjects become important because he chooses to write about them. He is at ease with his readers, so much so that he can drop all formality and discuss questions of the day, or tell them what he saw in a morning walk, or what he thinks on this or that literary subject, in much … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

The Flight Of Pony Baker – William Dean Howells

‘The Flight of Pony Baker’ will at once commend itself to boys and their elders because it is the work of William Dean Howells. Mr. Howells knows the modern American boy so thoroughly, his ambitions and traits, his temptations and joys, that one is predisposed to like Pony Baker. He lived in a small country town and was petted by his mother much to his disgust, and sternly suppressed by his father; and of course, being a boy, he planned to run away to the Indians, and, later, he made up his mind to join a circus-what boy has not? But through all these phases of his young life our author … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

The Kentons – William Dean Howells

W. D. Howells is quite in his best vein in ‘The Kentons.’ Like all of his work, this possesses that quality which we expect in a classic, but rarely look for and more rarely find in contemporary fiction, of repaying the closest and most minute reading, and it is this fact which seems most surely to guarantee a long life to his books. It is of no use to gallop through Mr. Howells; the habitual gallopers invariably find him dull and wonder what his admirers see in him. The proper way to enjoy him is to have or get a sense of humor, and then to settle down in the most leisurely of moods … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Heroines Of Fiction – William Dean Howells

The numerous class of novel readers who for a lifetime have wandered through the fields of fiction, not premeditatedly seeking mental or moral improvement, but with a mind chiefly on “pleasure bent,” have a treat in store in ‘Heroines of Fiction.’ Mr. Howells does not write of his own heroines of fiction – it is the creations of the English and American novelists of times long ago who have filled an imaginative world with a galaxy of feminine loveliness and charm that he considers. The dear old friends of fiction who have become as real to us, in name and appearance, as if we and they had lived side by side in the … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

A Pair Of Patient Lovers – William Dean Howells

The five stories contained in this volume are “A Pair of Patient Lovers”, “The Pursuit of the Piano”, “A Difficult Case”,” The Magic of a Voice” and “A Circle in the Water”. These are stories of the sort that only Mr. Howells knows how to write.

A Pair Of Patient Lovers.

Format: eBook.

A Pair Of Patient Lovers.

ISBN: 9783849657703

Excerpt from the text:

I.

We first met Glendenning on the Canadian boat which carries you down the rapids of the St. Lawrence from Kingston and leaves you at Montreal. When we saw a handsome young clergyman across the promenade-deck looking up from his guide-book toward us, now and again, … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Literary Friends And Acquaintance – William Dean Howells

Mr. William Dean Howells has written many books of several kinds which have entertained a great many people of all kinds, but no single book of any kind in which his various talents appear to such advantage to themselves and enjoyment of their readers as in his ‘Literary Friends and Acquaintance’, which, briefly described as a personal retrospect of American authorship, is in reality a series of portraits and miniatures of American men, women and, figuratively, in some cases, children of the pen, a gallery of literary likenesses, drawn from life, with a skillful but kindly pencil, and in the light that lingers like a halo around their lessening memories. Mr. Howells … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...

Their Silver Wedding Journey – William Dean Howells

The story of Mr. W. D. Howells’s ‘Their Silver Wedding Journey’ is ‘Their Wedding Journey’ over again, after an interval of twenty-five years; and a clever and entertaining recital of familiarities it is. It is like looking in the glass to read such a tale, and there are all the sights and sounds of the steamer, too, of the Continent, and of the amiable and happy go-betweens of a lover husband and his wife. Mr. Howells beats his gold out pretty thin, but it is gold all the same; or, to change the figure, the old shapes and colors are here again, but the kaleidoscope has had a shake and the combination … Read more.../Mehr lesen ...