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Babbitt

Sinclair Lewis

1922
His name was George F. Babbitt. He was forty-six years old now, in April, 1920, and he made nothing in particular, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry, but he was nimble in the calling of selling houses for more than people could afford to pay. ... He seemed prosperous, extremely married and unromantic. ... Yet Babbitt was again dreaming of the fairy child, a dream more romantic than scarlet pagodas by a silver sea.

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis is the story of George F. Babbitt, successful businessman, conformist, and consumerist. Living and thriving in the fictional Midwestern city of Zenith, for all his prosperity Babbitt is not satisfied with his life and proceeds to a midlife crisis in 1920, 45 years before the term was invented to let him know what was happening to him.

Published in 1922, Babbitt is one of the earlier novels by Sinclair Lewis, who wrote 22 novels and three plays over his career and in 1930 was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Book publisher: Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, 1922
Book copyright: 1922
Book edition: First edition, first printing, as characterized on page 49, line 4 by the word “Purdy” instead of “Lyte” and on line 5 by the word “my” instead of “any”. Only about 2500 of these first printings were made (out of over 250,000) before later printings corrected these errors.
Pages: 401 (420 bound pages)
Size: 5″ x 7-5/8″
Dust jacket:
 No
Illustrations: None
Back matter: 5 pages
Digital edition © 2005 Curtis Philips. All Rights Reserved.

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