Babbitt Articulo

"All of Us Americans at 46": The Making of Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt"
Author(s): James M. Hutchisson

Source: Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Winter, 1992), pp. 95-114
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3831549
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JAMES M. HUTCHISSON
THE CITADEL
11 All of Us Americans at 46": The Making

Sinclair Lewis' Babbitt
WHEN SINCLAIR LEWIS PUBLISHED BABBITT IN 1922, he created an arche

figure that has since remained in America's cultural consciousness?the stand
middle-class businessman carried along by the tide of consumer culture and boos
Lewis also coined a term for this way of thinking which remains in the vernacular
The process by which he wrote the novel, a topic that has never been exami
fascinating: among Lewis' papers at The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
of Yale University there is a wealth of documentary evidence which shows that
systematically and meticulously researched the field of real estate; visited cities to
possible models for Zenith; and compiled intricately detailed biographies of the l
characters. He even drew maps of the interior and exterior settings in the novel
wrote a scene-by-scene summary ofthe plot?all before writing a word ofthe first
None of these materials has been published previously, or even commented up
any detail.1 They provide revealing evidence of the ways in which Lewis con
then progressively revised Babbitt at three stages: first, there is a series of copiou
on various aspects of 1920s American life and on characters, places, and prof
which Lewis used either directly or indirectly in the novel; next, there is a fragm
a rejected outline for an early chapter of the novel which shows that Lewis
significant changes in the structure and focus of Babbitt after he had conceived it;
there is a completed draft typescript which is a spider's web of blue, red, black,
green pencil markings, but which when unravelled reveals that Lewis made two ty
major changes in the characterization of Babbitt. In some portions of the typesc
Lewis tempered his exaggerated portrait, making Babbitt less stereotyped an
realistic. But elsewhere Lewis made many more cuts, sometimes of a dozen o
pages in length, that reduced drastically the human qualities of his character and th
showed Babbitt in a less sympathetic light, making him more of a type than an ind
The surviving physical evidence, together with Lewis' almost daily correspond
with his friends and publishers, reveals that Lewis worried over and worked on
of aesthetic problems as he moved from notes to plan to rough draft, problems
account for some persisting difficulties with interpretations of the novel. In wr
Babbitt, Lewis was walking a hairline, trying to balance prose that would commu
both straightforward narrative and satire, trying to write a novel that was a study
a single character and of that character's milieu, and trying to create a protagonis
1 All illustrations from the manuscripts and notes for Babbitt are reprinted here with
kind permission of the Sinclair Lewis Estate, the copyright holder, and the Beinecke R
and Manuscript and Library of Yale University. They are the property of the Beinecke
Library.
James M. Hutchisson, '"All of Us Americans at 46': The Making of Sinclair Lewis'

Babbitt" Journal of Modern Literature, XVIII: 1 (Winter 1992), pp. 95-114. ?1994
Temple University.
96 JAMES M. HUTCHISSON
^g?;;;:':^^
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THE MAKING OF BABBITT 97
was both a type and a multi-d

Harcourt, he wanted Babbitt t
a character who would represe
wanting?passionately?to seize
too late" The character woul
yet dramatic, passionate, stru
Glimpses of the figure who

Street?m Percy Bresnahan, w
"Honest" Jim Blausser, who
began planning his "next grea
Main Street. From the Maine r
to Harcourt in the late summe
man in the Pullman smoker, o
one "G. T. Pumphrey of Mo
character remained the same t
began work on the novel, but
had decided should be the sa
because it was "too English
disapproved of as "too freak
"title name" should not be "
Brown, Johnson?for the reaso
novel but with their numerou
of November Lewis settled on
Lewis retained the name "Fit
research for the novel, com
recalled, Lewis put "as much st
a Ph.D. thesis."4 The notebook
at work?gathering data, filter
fiction. In conceiving his Ba
2 Lewis to Harcourt, 28 Decemb

Sinclair Lewis, 1919-1930, ed. H
references to this volume will b
the Beinecke as follows: "Babbit
typescript, Box 32. Wherever po
exception of the "Babbitt Notebo
to the Harcourt, Brace first edit
Funding for this research was p
by The Citadel; I am grateful to
the kind permission of the Offic
Executor of the Lewis Estate.
3 Lewis to Harcourt, 27 October 1920; Harcourt to Lewis, 4 November 1920; Lewis to

Harcourt, 11 November 1920 and 20 November 1920, Letters,^. 39, 41-42, 47.
4 Some Experiences (privately printed, 1951), p. 83.
details and documented it a

a fraction of the contents o
"Largest Industrial Corporat
Buildings"; "Lines of Indust
For the leading characters
paragraph to three pages.
courses he would have taken
catalog), how he met his w
past, which Lewis ultimatel
made in the characterization
"characters" who do not app
mythic city: "Members of
of Babbitt-Thompson Rea
(each of whose specialty i
properties and "RM" for
Friends"?an entire society o
The copious detail ofthe no
planning a series of interre
ahead to Dodsworth (1929), f
Descendants in Zenith To
Although no information is
Dodsworths: the Dodswor
"Largest Industrial Corp
Construction Company," w
pages, Lewis worked out a
Souls," in which we again
appears in Babbitt and is m
planning at least one othe
souls." According to this ent
when he encounters them,
lively and fine a social grou
characters in the notebook
used some of them in later
to be the "New Thought p
"professor" in Arrowsmi
Eastern c[olle]ges and prep
in Dodsworth. Throughout
setting and added materi
preliminary research for the
and prophetically told Harc
Babbittry. . . ."5
The concept of Zenith ha
these details, Lewis went to
went about his task almost
novel would concern and m
and most of April 1921, Lew
Lewis to Harcourt, 17 Decem
.,:u:S;jwU:;s|:y";'
but he spent most of his tim

of people, really getting th
material he gathered here sh
Clippings from Cincinnati ne
city districts which would be
"Silver Grove," the names of
37), Lewis wrote: "models f
the raw data, Lewis embelli
material in the novel?in this
to, tf//the city" as "a cosmo
equals the world" but also the
parks, symphony orchestra
their syntax and language i
Zenith Advocate-Times about
one such clipping Lewis wr
notebook as the society repor
Objects of satire in the no
being forced by his wife to a
International New Thought A
such an organization. The sim
in the novel is close. In the n
on "Cultivating the Sun Spir
on the bulletin, "Miss Leon
Perhaps the most detailed?
concerns real estate. Various
in Cincinnati in 1920, with 3
are handwritten calculations
Babbitt's. There is also a d
Wilmette, Illinois, which he
located on the "Ground floor
U[nion]. office," and has a "P
cemetery" (Cf. p. 34). Stanley
in that same chapter is, but
"Heard over phone here, 'I th
seen it. Well, how'd it stri
Finally, no one section ofthe
his ear for mimicking Amer
catalogues of expressions and
grouch today?" Or, "If (-) h
is cooked." Some notes are
connective." Lewis even mark
into Babbitt, among them Ba
take any wooden money" (p.
the church choir as providi
phrases that Lewis jotted dow
Park, Illinois, where he evide
6 Lewis to Harcourt, 16 Febru
The notebook, in sum, reveals

inBabbitt. Yet it also may accou
seems more interested in the s
psychological complexities
commented that "in some way
conscious, indeed systematic s
documentation in the notebook
research and therefore unable t
This may also account in part fo
compared to the more unified a
Most important, it may prov
character, a problem which ma
don't think 'Babbitt' as good a n
Lewis, "because in the latter you
Street in the consciousness of a
comparison, & was detached eno
& of Zenith up to his chin &
draft typescript indicates that L
and not letting his descriptio
emphasis on Babbitt.
In late April 1921, Lewis re

successful results of his "interv
in early May. When the Lewise
house in the "tiny old village of
country" and soon Lewis began
writing." On 12 July, he e
started?Babbitt?and I think h
"writing a little," his work to thi
plan."9 The "Babbitt Plan," as
material in the notebook, and it
among other things, that Lewi
material that pertained to the c
the characterization of Babbitt.1
According to the draft typesc
7 "Afterword," Babbitt (New Am
8 Wharton to Lewis, 27 August

Nancy Lewis (Scribner's, 1988), p
9 Lewis to Harcourt, 15 June 19
10 One assumes that Lewis wrote

and a half pages discussed here ha
Sinclair Lewis, J912-1925 (Harcou
thousand words," probably referr
HISTORY OF ZQJITH
MHIK li**:
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of the Ch.80ooaa suid
^HSHIWIMi
|pilli||iill^Mi*:or:::
HNPt~ - *o V;:G<?rintaant
lili liili
before the Zenith Real Estate

Possibly at Harcourt's suggest
published and relocated it as p
headed "CHAPTER II" suggest t
published novel begins, was origi
him dreaming again." In Babbitt
of the past, describing the foun
the city by 1885, "quoting" from
at that time for a description to
sources, such as the commenta
historian James Bryce.
Most ofthe details for this out
"History of Zenith" contain a str
itsfounding in 1792, when the
The city was to have been nam
Peter Dodsworth "had [the] na
righteousness." Thus the foun
(dubious even then, for Lewis n
defined" and "to be aristocrat
materialism and rule by wealth
Zenith, then, Lewis invented fo
modern times. Yet he elected not
similar cuts that removed "hi
abundant sociological data in the
have been planning a novel as
letter to H. L. Mencken at about
came from Mencken's review of
taken up now is the America
500,000?the Baltimores and Om
noted that he had "tried like hell
boob Babbitt" and focus to an
Commerce, the new bungalows"
11 See Harcourt to Lewis, 20 Jan

away as much of your point of vie
development of the characters as t
12 The last page of this fragment

1921" of the novel, shows another
Kennicott, the central characters i
Babbitt's second cousin, visiting Z
re G.P. Contrast Bab and Ken", ind
further the evolution of the Midwe
"boosting" their hometowns?Babbi
becoming accustomed to such beha
13 Lewis to Mencken, "August 1

American Life (McGraw-Hill, 196
Yet Lewis' intentions in this reg

order to focus the novel on Bab
Lewis thought through Babbit
that in his youth Babbitt was an
which he had changed. The next
2 shows him as a college studen
Paul Riesling, Irving Tate, Ma
two,entitled "IDYLLIC 1890,"
in which Tate would make an
reform mayor; "Riesling [a]
millionaire banker"; and "Your
wrote a parallel list, showing h
years: "Became?Bab as we s
"McKelvey did become millio
book)." The rest ofthe plan follo
we see him in college, making h
I tell you, a fellow hadn't ou

have some ideals?like Prof
honest political candidates an
you a fellow ought to take p
world better. He hadn't ough
(plan, p. 13)
In the novel, of course, Babbi

Prout, the "mattress manufactu
of "a good story" is not Conrad
to forget his troubles" (p. 27
suggests that Babbitt "take a w
rejects out of hand: "Hunka! I'v
want to keep out of them" (p. 1
. . . nev[er] realized" and his d
late" (plan, p. 13). Lewis also o
in law school and his early di
Riesling's similarly lofty amb
Throughout this plan, we see th
dreamed of idylls in his yout
gleaming porcelain bathrooms
published novel. Lewis mention
how he changed. As Sheldon Gr
14 Harcourt may have been partl

the first fifty-seven pages of the
book as the story of a man, and le
civilization, or any other damn th
Lewis, however, was worried that
such as Main Street. He, therefor
the press "about the new novel no
1922, Letters, p. 97).
could ever have been a wild a

in a somewhat more sympath
have seen him. Babbitt has al
but this early plan for the n
understanding toward his cre
his characters has been a mai
Doren claimed inhis "Revolt o
and because he equated dullne
characters,people of shallow
somewhat reduced by Lewis
Lewis continued to streaml
reviewed it: "no plot whate
development of character."17
Through July and early A

finishing his plans for the n
had Grace ask Harcourt to sen
Dutch Colonial, and other s
developments inthe new nove
"pompous pamphlets . . . whi
of pseudo psychology abou
"high-falutin 'psychology.'" I
out "not only records of mortgages etc. but also real estate gossip and
tips."18 While in England, Lewis customarily worked "all morning and an hour
or so in the afternoon," then went for a "walk or drive or swim" with Grace, "all the
time talking Babbitt." At this point Lewis also drew what Grace called "the most
astonishingly complete series of maps of Zenith," including "the plans of and furnishing[s
of] Babbitt's house . . . so that the city, the suburbs, the state" would all be "clear in
Hal's mind."19 These eighteen drawings show the precision with which Lewis fixed
his setting and provide further evidence that Babbitt was to be the prototype for a series
of interrelated novels. One map, for instance, depicts "The State in Which is Zenith,"
a state that went unnamed until Arrowsmith, in which Lewis identified it as Winnemac.
A street diagram, "Zenith?Most Important Part," notes where the Babbitts, apparently
15 Sinclair Lewis (Twayne, 1962), p. 85.
16 "The Revolt from the Village: 1920," Nation, CXm (12 October 1921), p. 411.
17 "Portrait of an American Citizen," Smart Set, LXIX (October 1922), p. 139.
18 Grace Hegger Lewis to Ellen Eayres (Harcourt's secretary), 20 July 1921, Letters, p. 78.
19 Grace Hegger Lewis to Harcourt, 20 July 1921, Letters, pp. 78-9.
as a
class or level of society, live a
which figures in Dodsworth.20
By 3 August 1921, Lewis had wri
thought that "both it and the pl
typescript through
of the early fall
where he took a two and a half-we
the novel, "not only because of th
things about it during the period?
which one doesn't always make
"readjustments" included, probably
By 26 October, Lewis had complete
words of the typescript, telling H
thick texture. As always it needs c
in Rome, Lewis had finished nin
reading over, doing a little revis
suggestions on the first 70,000 wor
further revising by the end of Fe
several times during March and Ap
before sailing back to New York on
The clean typescript, which was p
collation of the draft typescript a
revising on the draft. There are fe
changes are stylistic; with his char
cut out prolixity, and paid great att
three or four words then circling
however, were done in the charact
altogether or reduced the roles of
on Babbitt. In chapter 6, for exam
with his father-in-law, Henry Tho
Motor Car Company. In this pass
of his own life which Babbitt liste
Babbitt's mother (called "Madame B
chapter 9. Larger roles were also p
Babbitt's next-door neighbors. T
Lewis intended to use them as coun
20 These drawings have been reprin

Maps," Modern Language Quarterly
in the former Lewis study at Twin Fa
his second wife, Dorothy Thompson
George Arents Research Library of S
21 Lewis to Harcourt, 3 August 1921
22 Lewis to Harcourt, 18 October 19
23 Lewis to Harcourt, 26 October 19
24 Lewis to Harcourt, 5 November 1
obviously between the extrem

of Doppelbrau (Typescript
involving the evangelist Mike
briefly in chapter 7 (pp. 9
additional nine pages on Mon
"by efficient organization . .
unprecedented rock-bottom b
priceless souls at an average
Lewis possibly eliminated t
"preacher novel"?Elmer Gant
But it seems clear that in r
typescript, Lewis wanted to f
or outside Babbitt's class.
Accordingly, Lewis made many revisions in the depiction of his central character.
Herein lies the most interesting shift in Lewis' intentions. In a very few places, he
softened the characterization of Babbitt, making him less exaggerated, less of a caricature.
But in a greater number of places, mostly near the end of the typescript draft, Lewis
deleted passages, often running to a dozen pages or more, which resulted in revisions of
a different sort. In these deleted scenes Babbitt is more of a multi-dimensional character
than he is in the published text?he is more realistic, more human.
Evidence of Lewis' softening Babbitt occurs mainly in the early chapters, particularly
the original version of Babbitt's speech to the real estate board, which is harsher in
typescript than it is in the published text. In his remarks about the "Ideal Citizen" as a
churchgoer, for example, Babbitt is downright contemptuous of men who are not
"modest, loyal Christians"; they do not "appreciate the fact that . . . this country [is] a
good place to live in and do business in?a land equally free of the insane hell-raising
communistic maniacs and ofthe rotten irreligious voluptuaries that burden other lands"
(Typescript, p. "F"). Elsewhere in the speech, Babbitt is equally vituperative about
subjects that "threaten" America. In having Babbitt discuss literature, for example, Lewis
indulged in various private jokes such as one in which Babbitt reacts against
these hopeless literary groupies, these twenty-year-old know-it-alls,

that go for one million dull sloppy pages describing every fly in the
grocery stores on Main Street, or write about the love-affairs of a
young socialistic pup, or the sad sorrows of kitchen mechanics, or about
a place called "Winesburg" but it ought to be called "Coca-Cola
Center"! (Typescript, p. "J")
Similarly, Babbitt's dire prophesies about "irresponsible teachers and professors, long-
haired pups who work under cover" and concoct "nefarious plots to wreck the
Constitution" present him as almost neurotic (Typescript, p. "N?A").
But by far the most revisions in the typescript worked in the opposite direction, for
they deleted much material that made Babbitt a less clownish and a more fully-rounded
character. These revisions occur mostly in the last third of the novel, as Babbitt flirts
briefly with nonconformity. Very few of these passages are stylistically elegant or
psychologically precise enough for Lewis to have kept them in the published text. It is
clear why he deleted them, but the passages are significant in that they show Lewis trying
to invest Babbitt's character with more self-knowledge than he ultimately has in the
novel. Just as there is little sense in the published text of what drives Babbitt to rebel,
there is equally little sense of h

less sense of this in the publishe
typescript passages, Lewis tried
In chapter 29, for instance, dur
apartment, Babbitt originally ex
To Babbitt came that ancient

forever is discovering, that i
less joy than he had expected
drank much too much, and w
and hated himself rather sp
misnumbered])
Yet in the published text, Babbi

"fully a member of the Bunch
written paragraphs from the en
during his family's absence, "for
that night, his arms behind his
young with the desire to be you
at the ends of chapters which h
for instance, the conclusion of
return to Zenith a new man, "at
humor, his original philosophy,
himself?but all he can think of
innocent flirtation with Ida Putia
exclusively "in the annals of the
never happened in Babbitt's drea
(Typescript, p. 418). Lewis cut
ending." Awkward, to be sur
replacement: "Thus it came to hi
never run away from himself"
Elsewhere in the typescript,
understand why his "standardize
chapter 21, when Babbitt lear
appended a sentence which does
He sat mechanically holding t

who had lived on the surfa
purposeless hustlings, and thi
in a world turbulent, dark, a
p. 359)
This sentence foreshadows Babbitt's entry into a subterranean life of half-hearted

bohemianism and shows us some of the emotions that compel him to do so. It is one of
several attempts at a psychological probing of Babbitt's character that Lewis, it seems,
could not polish sufficiently to use in the published text. Some cuts, such as this one,
were evidently suggested by Grace, who read and commented upon the manuscript to
Sit right (town at the handsome canr?d mahogany .
Lewis as he worked on it in Italy

Grace wrote, "Troppo forte! Mo
unmistakeably Lewis with a pain
nose. Lewis evidently agreed tha
itin the typescript.
Some deleted passages seem to
descriptions of Babbitt growing
27, Lewis originally had Babbitt
occasioned by the ongoing labor
Ever since Paul?since that h

jump at conclusions, and
don't?Oh, God, I don't know
as I used to. .. . Maybe I'm g
as plain as they used to. All k
to see them. Even morals and
Here, Babbitt is unable to expre

coherent language. That he cann
published version of the passa
strikers: "they're not such ba
imperfect attempts at introspec
a deleted passage in chapter 19
behavior, Lewis showed Babbitt'
presently he forgot the horr

sleeping-porch at four in the
charges, seen himself as a fail
of Progress that he had been
damn all these damn phras
Damn the Wheels of Prog
(Typescript, p. 323)
This cut was also suggested by G

G?Bab growing neurotic as Car
hear; stop at 'as a son, I had muc
passage at that point in the pub
passage also shows a Babbitt w
articulating his thoughts.
In some of these deleted passag
knowledge in prose that was oft
when Vergil Gunch tries to coax
Lewis originally described Babbi
because "Fear, looming and gray
but ate alone at a lunch-room
gray, and looming, lunched wit
conversation between the two f
from across the street, Babbitt
not included in the published no
realization that he is essentia

same chapter, when Babbitt's
increasingly threaten him as
the published version, the
worries: "Could the fellows
liberal? Way Verg looked at
passage in which the fairy g
He forgot Tanis Judique,

almost merged with that o
awake, and in the night, b
watching. (Typescript, p
Here, Lewis makes concrete t

concept of a woman, or of
nights of his life.
However imperfect these

conceived his protagonist as l
of a multi-dimensional, huma
reduced Babbitt's essential
"plan." This is not to say tha
understanding of himself. Ho
novel has been that Lewis did
nor was he capable of prod
desirable in modern man. E
Lewis commissioned by Harc
that the novel would have
through the other characters
he is, of imbuing him with s
Frederick J. Hoffmann has co
. .. two types of literary exp
presentation of "a sensitive,
Babbitt," whom Lewis was un
plan and the typescript sugg
more of a capacity for meani
The revisions also illustrate
work out as he wrote Babbi
composition of the novel, Le
and Donald Brace, Harcourt's
... not a type," but at the sam
25 The Significance of Sinclair
26 The Twenties: American W
sums up certain things in all co

Harcourt, "I want utterly to dev
individual."28 To Mencken he
burlesque"?"I've tried to make h
was motivated largely by review
The New Republic which claime
fiilly-developed characters. Lew
of 'exterior vision,' of sacrifice o
noted.30
Yet Lewis evidently had great difficulty in presenting Babbitt in this somewhat more
sympathetic light. The reasons seem clear enough from the documentary evidence.
Many of the deleted typescript passages suggest that Lewis was unable to find a suitable
authorial voice with which to express Babbitt's feelings. Lewis attempted to fashion one
which would be understanding toward Babbitt without being clumsy or hackneyed, or
which went to the opposite extreme and presented a Babbitt who was neurotic?as Grace
observed?or overly romanticized?as the diction in the deleted passages, with its
somewhat belabored tropes, suggests. But Lewis could not create such a persona; so the
only voice left him was an ironic one, the characteristic voice of the published novel.
Lewis also seems to have guarded carefully against making Babbitt a romanticized
figure. In an early letter to Harcourt, Lewis said:
I want the novel to be the G. A. N. [great American novel] in so far as

it crystallizes and makes real the Average Capable American. No one
has done it. . . no one has even touched it except Booth Tarkington in
Turmoil and Magnificent Ambersons; and he romanticizes away all
bigness.31
Lewis may have feared losing the satirical edge to his novel and presenting a Babbitt who
embodied neither of the two qualities Lewis tried to hold in delicate equipoise?the
human Babbitt and the clownish Babbitt?but who was merely a romantic dreamer
without any ofthe "bigness" that Lewis wanted him to have. However, the materials
with which he created the novel all suggest that Lewis thought of Babbitt in a more
sympathetic way than we see him in the published text and that Lewis believed there was
more complexity to this American type than he ultimately portrayed.
27 Lewis to Harcourt and Brace, 20 January 1922, Letters, p. 95.
28 Lewis to Harcourt, 28 December 1920, Letters, p. 59.
29 Lewis to Mencken, "August 1921," in Schorer, p. 291.
30 Lewis to Harcourt, 30 November 1920, Letters, p. 52.
31 Lewis to Harcourt, 28 December 1920, Letters, p. 59.
S:?.^M;*i;^LHjî^;:^..L::ii;-!:s,-- :?';:.,?; - ?
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"All of Us Americans at 46": The Making of Sinclair Lewis' "Babbitt"

Author(s): James M. Hutchisson

11 All of Us Americans at 46": The Making

WHEN SINCLAIR LEWIS PUBLISHED BABBITT IN 1922, he created an arche

James M. Hutchisson, '"All of Us Americans at 46': The Making of Sinclair Lewis'

r.^-*,*.:..:^ >...::?? ???- .:. ::?:? : ?&.x-.-.--S-rMs:~s*- -1;..:^:%$%^. <^r;g^j:f, ~ : ;. .

was both a type and a multi-d

Glimpses of the figure who

2 Lewis to Harcourt, 28 Decemb

3 Lewis to Harcourt, 27 October 1920; Harcourt to Lewis, 4 November 1920; Lewis to

4 Some Experiences (privately printed, 1951), p. 83.

details and documented it a

Lewis to Harcourt, 17 Decem

but he spent most of his tim

6 Lewis to Harcourt, 16 Febru

The notebook, in sum, reveals

In late April 1921, Lewis re

7 "Afterword," Babbitt (New Am

8 Wharton to Lewis, 27 August

9 Lewis to Harcourt, 15 June 19

10 One assumes that Lewis wrote

of the Ch.80ooaa suid

before the Zenith Real Estate

11 See Harcourt to Lewis, 20 Jan

12 The last page of this fragment

13 Lewis to Mencken, "August 1

Yet Lewis' intentions in this reg

I tell you, a fellow hadn't ou

In the novel, of course, Babbi

14 Harcourt may have been partl

could ever have been a wild a

Through July and early A

15 Sinclair Lewis (Twayne, 1962), p. 85.

17 "Portrait of an American Citizen," Smart Set, LXIX (October 1922), p. 139.

19 Grace Hegger Lewis to Harcourt, 20 July 1921, Letters, pp. 78-9.

20 These drawings have been reprin

21 Lewis to Harcourt, 3 August 1921

22 Lewis to Harcourt, 18 October 19

23 Lewis to Harcourt, 26 October 19

24 Lewis to Harcourt, 5 November 1

obviously between the extrem

these hopeless literary groupies, these twenty-year-old know-it-alls,

there is equally little sense of h

To Babbitt came that ancient

Yet in the published text, Babbi

He sat mechanically holding t

This sentence foreshadows Babbitt's entry into a subterranean life of half-hearted

Sit right (town at the handsome canr?d mahogany .

Lewis as he worked on it in Italy

Ever since Paul?since that h

Here, Babbitt is unable to expre

presently he forgot the horr

This cut was also suggested by G

realization that he is essentia

He forgot Tanis Judique,

Here, Lewis makes concrete t

However imperfect these

25 The Significance of Sinclair

26 The Twenties: American W

sums up certain things in all co

I want the novel to be the G. A. N. [great American novel] in so far as

27 Lewis to Harcourt and Brace, 20 January 1922, Letters, p. 95.

28 Lewis to Harcourt, 28 December 1920, Letters, p. 59.

29 Lewis to Mencken, "August 1921," in Schorer, p. 291.

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