American realist author and literary critic.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur in the paint business. His social views were also strongly reflected in the novels Annie Kilburn [1888] and A Hazard of New Fortunes [1890].
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Perez Galdos, and ...