Publisher's Synopsis
Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott is a novel written by Sinclair Lewis and first published in 1920. The story is set in the fictional town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, which is based on Lewis's hometown of Sauk Centre. The novel follows the life of Carol Milford Kennicott, a young woman from the city who marries a doctor and moves to Gopher Prairie, where she finds herself struggling to fit in with the conservative and narrow-minded townspeople.As Carol tries to bring culture and progress to the town through her involvement in various projects, she faces opposition and ridicule from the locals who are resistant to change. The novel explores themes of conformity, individualism, and the tension between urban and rural life.Through Carol's experiences, the novel offers a critique of small-town America and the limitations of traditional values and social norms. It also portrays the challenges faced by women in a patriarchal society and the importance of personal growth and self-discovery.Main Street: The Story of Carol Kennicott is considered a classic of American literature and a seminal work in the genre of social commentary. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921 and helped establish Sinclair Lewis as one of the most important writers of his time.1920. Illustrated with scenes from the Photoplay, a Warner Brothers screen classic. Lewis, was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Possibly the greatest satirist of his age, Lewis wrote novels that present a devastating picture of middle-class American life in the 1920s. Although he ridiculed the values, the lifestyles, and even the speech of his characters, there is often affection behind the irony. Lewis began his career as a journalist, editor, and hack writer. He became an important literary figure with the publication of Main Street, the first popular bestseller to attack conventional ideas about marriage, gender roles, and small town life. The novel follows beautiful young Carol Kennicott who comes to Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, with dreams of transforming the provincial old town into a place of beauty and culture, but instead runs into a wall of bigotry, hypocrisy and complacency. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.