Main Street (Lewis)

For works with similar titles, see Main Street.

Main Street (1920)
by Sinclair Lewis

Main Street is a satirical novel written by Sinclair Lewis, and published in 1920. The story is set in Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, a fictionalized version of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis' hometown.Warning: template has been deprecated.

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MAIN STREET

NOVELS BY SINCLAIR LEWIS

Our Mr. Wrenn
The Trail of the Hawk
The Job
Free Air
Main Street

MAIN STREET

THE STORY OF CAROL KENNICOTT

BY

SINCLAIR LEWIS

NEW YORK

HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE

1920

COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY

HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE, INC.

THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
RAHWAY N. J.

To

James Branch Cabell

and

Joseph Hergesheimer

This is America—a town of a few thousand, in a region of wheat and corn and dairies and little groves.

The town is, in our tale, called "Gopher Prairie, Minnesota." But its Main Street is the continuation of Main Streets everywhere. The story would be the same in Ohio or Montana, in Kansas or Kentucky or Illinois, and not very differently would it be told Up York State or in the Carolina hills.

Main Street is the climax of civilization. That this Ford car might stand in front of the Bon Ton Store, Hannibal invaded Rome and Erasmus wrote in Oxford cloisters. What Ole Jenson the grocer says to Ezra Stowbody the banker is the new law for London, Prague, and the unprofitable isles of the sea; whatsoever Ezra does not know and sanction, that thing is heresy, worthless for knowing and wicked to consider.

Our railway station is the final aspiration of architecture. Sam Clark's annual hardware turnover is the envy of the four counties which constitute God's Country. In the sensitive art of the Rosebud Movie Palace there is a Message, and humor strictly moral.

Such is our comfortable tradition and sure faith. Would he not betray himself an alien cynic who should otherwise portray Main Street, or distress the citizens by speculating whether there may not be other faiths?

Chapters (not listed in original)

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1920, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1951, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 72 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Main Street (Lewis)

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