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Sitaram
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Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Posts: 1079
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 Posted: Mon May 15, 2006 10:58 am Post subject: Edith Wharton & Sinclair Lewis |
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I purchased Kingsblood Royal, and read portions of it, because of the civil
rights angle, i.e., a prominent "white" man discovers he has one distant
black ancestor, and begins to explore African-American culture.
Sinclair Lewis was the first American to win a Nobel Prize, if I remember
correctly.
I think I noticed that he dedicated one book to Edith Wharton, but I may
be mistaken.
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/wharton/slewis.htm
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In 1921, when Sinclair Lewis's book Main Street was passed over for the
Pulitzer Prize in favor of The Age of Innocence, he sent Edith Wharton a
congratulatory letter expressing his admiration for her work. She
responded warmly, saying that this was the "first sign I have ever
had--`literally'--that `les Jeunes' at home had ever read a word of me."
Although distressed that Lewis's book had been rejected because it had
offended certain readers, she felt that his work had brought her hope:
"Some sort of standard is emerging from the welter of cant and
sentimentality, and if two or three of us are gathered together, I believe
we can still save Fiction in America." Lewis and his wife came out to
Saint-Brice-sous-For't soon after this exchange of letters. His relationship
with Wharton was cordial but not intimate. They saw each other
intermittently for several years, and he dedicated his novel Babbitt to her.
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By the way, (non sequitur), did you know that "Ethan Frome" was first
written in French, at the suggestion of Wharton's French tutor, as an
exercise to learn the language.
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