The Rise of Silas Lapham (Norton Critical Editions)

by Howells, William Dean; Cook, Don L.

• ISBN13: 9780393091656
• ISBN10: 0393091651
• Edition: 00
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1982-09-17
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Summary

Silas Lapham is a rough-hewn entrepreneur who has made his fortune in mineral paint. Socially ambitious for their daughters, Lapham and his wife encourage the suit of Tom Corey, son of an aristocratic Boston family, whose own parents are appalled by his consorting with vulgar upstarts. But which Lapham girl does Tom really love: the pretty blonde Irene or her bookish sister Penelope? As the romantic confusion is sorted out, Lapham suffers calamities that threaten both his financial and personal integrity. His rise is ultimately a moral one. The first major American novel to centre on a businessman, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) explores the capitalist ethos of the American Gilded Age. It is also a brilliant novel of manners that shows the comic confrontation of old wealth and new riches.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
The Text of The Rise of Silas Lapham	1	(321)
Textual Note: Hyphenation of Divided Words	322	(3)
Composition and Backgrounds	325	(192)
Composition
The Rise of Silas Needham	328	(1)
W.D. Howells
The ``Savings Bank'' Notebook	329	(1)
W.D. Howells
Letter to Richard Watson Gilder (July 31, 1884)	329	(1)
W.D. Howells
Letter to Mark Twain (August 10, 1884)	330	(1)
W.D. Howells
Letter to Henry James (August 22, 1884)	331	(1)
W.D. Howells
Gentlemen Publishers	332	(4)
Ellen B. Ballou
Illustration: The Counting Room at the Riverside Press in the 1880s	336	(1)
Letter to His Father (August 10, 1884)	337	(1)
W.D. Howells
[Summer in New York]	337	(2)
W.D. Howells
Letter to W.D. Howells (February 18, 1885)	339	(1)
Richard Watson Gilder
Letter to W.D. Howells (February 18, 1885)	340	(1)
Roswell Smith
The Dynamite Passages	341	(1)
Textual Variations
Letter to W.D. Howells (July 12, 1885)	342	(1)
Cyrus L. Sulzberger
Letter to Cyrus L. Sulzberger (July 17, 1885)	343	(1)
W.D. Howells
Letter to W.D. Howells (July 19, 1885)	343	(1)
Cyrus L. Sulzberger
Textual Variations The Jews	344	(2)
The Rise of Silas Lapham: A Play	346	(14)
W.D. Howells
Paul Kester
Backgrounds: The Myth of Success
W.D. Howells: Maturity in Fiction	360	(5)
Robert Falk
The Literature of the Household	365	(6)
Clark W. Bryan
How He Climbed Fame's Ladder	371	(4)
Theodore Dreiser
Letters to W.D. Howells (March 7, 1885-April 6, 1885)	375	(5)
Roswell Smith
Let Me Tell You About the Rich	380	(9)
Robie Macauley
Contemporary Responses
Friends and Readers	385	(4)
Letter to W.D. Howells (April 2, 1885)	389	(1)
John Hay
Letter to W.D. Howells (April 14, 1885)	390	(1)
Henry Norman
Letter to W.D. Howells (March 5. 1885)	390	(1)
William James
Letter to W.D. Howells (May 5, 1885)	391	(1)
Harold Frederic
Letter to W.D. Howells (May 9, 1885)	392	(1)
Clarence E. Buel
Letter to Clarence E. Buel (May 11, 1885)	392	(1)
W.D. Howells
Letter to W.D. Howells (May 21, 1885)	393	(1)
Owen Wister
Letter to W.D. Howells (May 23, 1885)	394	(1)
Henry James
The Critics
Recent Fiction	395	(1)
William Morton Payne
[A Characteristically American Book]	395	(1)
Recent American Fiction	396	(4)
Horace Scudder
[A Literal, Merciless Representation]	400	(2)
[Novel-Writing as a Science]	402	(6)
A Typical Novel	408	(6)
Hamilton Wright Mabie
The Analysts Analyzed	414	(3)
Maurice Thompson
``Diplomaticus'' A Portrayer of the Commonplace	417	(5)
Forrest Reid	422	(8)
W.D. Howells
Criticism
Critical Perspectives	427	(3)
The Ethical Unity of The Rise of Silas Lapham	430	(4)
Donald Pizer
The Rise of Silas Lapham: Retrospective Discussion as Dramatic Technique	434	(6)
William R. Manierre II
The Commonplace as Heroic in The Rise of Silas Lapham	440	(9)
John E. Hart
The Realist's Symbols	449	(3)
Harold H. Kolb
Family Unity in The Rise of Silas Lapham	452	(5)
George N. Bennett
Silas Lapham and the Public Morality	457	(5)
Everett Carter
The Architecture of The Rise of Silas Lapham	462	(25)
G. Thomas Tanselle
Howells and the Dilemmas of Realism
Of Everything the Unexplained and Irresponsible Specimen: Notes on How to Read American Realism	487	(5)
C. Hugh Holman
Henry James, Jr.	492	(1)
W.D. Howells
William Dean Howells	493	(3)
Henry James
A Call For Realism	496	(5)
W.D. Howells
Literary Hospitality: William Dean Howells	501	(4)
Larzer Ziff
The Chief American Realist: 1881-1885	505	(4)
Edwin H. Cady
Naturalism as a Literary Form	509	(4)
Robert M. Figg III
Realism and the Romance of Real Life: Multiple Fictional Worlds in Howells' Novels	513	(4)
Charles L. Campbell
Selected Bibliography	517