THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN. Atchison, Kas. Howe & Co., 1883. Octavo, illustrations by W. L. Wells, publisher's decorated brown cloth stamped in black, gold and blind. First edition. A pessimistic novel set in the fictional town of Twin Mounds, Kansas, that critiques the romanticized view of small-town life in the American Midwest, now considered a pioneering work of realistic fiction and a landmark of American literature. Howe's first and best known book. After the book was rejected by several publishers, Howe "printed it a page at a time in his own shop ... [it] went eventually through fifty printings ... [and] remains a landmark in American literature" (DAB). Howe's literary reputation is mixed. Fullerton says "Howe's work makes up in quality for what it lacks in quantity" and calls THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN "one of the most genuinely American stories ever published" (Selective Bibliography of American Literature 1775-1900, p 149). Quinn says THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN "would not be worthy of much notice except that it illustrates the critical stupidity which praises a sordid picture of life as necessarily true and, in a natural reaction against sugary optimism, is deceived into a belief that such productions as THE STORY OF A COUNTRY TOWN are important. Such criticism forgets that the fiction which presents life as entirely and completely hopeless is just as false as that which portrays it as perpetually happy. Howe's inability to construct a novel was proved completely by his succeeding books" (American Fiction, p. 540). A Merle Johnson High Spot. Wright (III) 2802. Touch of wear to cloth, a bright, very good copy with clean binding and tight inner hinges. (#177724).
Price: $150.00
No statement of printing.