"A Modern Instance" and "The
Rise of Silas Lapham" are perhaps the finest stories of this
group; and the latter novel may prove to be Mr. Howells's chief
"visiting-card to posterity." We cannot here follow him to New
York and to a new phase of novel writing, begun with "A Hazard of
New Fortunes," nor can we discuss the now antiquated debate upon
realism which was waged in the eighteen-eighties over the books
of Howells and James. We must content ourselves with saying that
a knowledge of Mr. Howells's work is essential to the student of
the American provincial novel, as it is also to the student of
our more generalized types of story-writing, and that he has
never in his long career written an insincere, a slovenly, or an
infelicitous page. "My Literary Friends and Acquaintance" gives
the most charming picture ever drawn of the elder Cambridge,
Concord, and Boston men who ruled over our literature when young
Howells came out of the West, and "My Mark Twain" is his
memorable portrait of another type of sovereign, perhaps the
dynasty that will rule the future.
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