William Dean: 355 books

One of the trustiest jokes of the humorous paragrapher is that the editor is in great and constant dread of the young contributor; but neither my experience nor my observation bears out his theory of the case.

Praised for the masterfully drawn protagonist, Jeff Durgan, The Landlord at Lion’s Head—considered one of Howells’s best novels for its expert characterization—follows Durgin from his impoverished childhood on a New England farm, to his unsuccessful career at Harvard, and finally to success at his fashionable hotel on the old farm’s site.

Howells wrote several captivating travel books, including Italian Journeys, Venetian Life, and Certain Delightful English Towns. Here, he turns his observant and sometimes critical eye to London, presenting a series of sketches of the city as if they were mental movies.

Basil and Isabel March first appeared in Howells’s Their Wedding Journey, which followed the newly married couple as they traveled to Niagara Falls on their honeymoon. Here, Howells returns to the March marriage as they revisit Hamburg, Carlsbad, Weimar, Leipzig, and Berlin—the cities of their youthful courtship.

He can say that, as the thing is, unless he sells his art he cannot live, that society will leave him to starve if he does not hit its fancy in a picture, or a poem, or a statue; and all this is bitterly true. He is, and he must be, only too glad if there is a market for his wares.  

I CALL it a Boy's Town because I wish it to appear to the reader as aHarper's Young People will like to know what a boy of forty years ago was like, even if he had no very exciting adventures or thread-bare escapes; perhaps I mean hair-breadth escapes; but it is the same thing – they have been used...

Bruce A. Glasrud and Deborah M. Liles have gathered over thirty years of scholarship—articles, book excerpts, and new, original essays—to offer for the first time an overview of the history of African Americans in Central Texas. From slavery and agriculture in the nineteenth century to entrepreneurship...