Sinclair Lewis 
Babbitt (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) 

Babbitt, by
Sinclair Lewis , is part of the
Barnes & Noble Classics
 series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of
Barnes & Noble Classics:

• New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars


• Biographies of the authors


• Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events


• Footnotes and endnotes


• Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work


• Comments by other famous authors


• Study questions to challenge the readers viewpoints and expectations


• Bibliographies for further reading


• Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest.
Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each readers understanding of these enduring works.




 


In the small midwestern city of Zenith, George Babbitt seems to have it all: a successful real-estate business, a devoted wife, three children, and a house with all the modern conveniences. Yet, dissatisfied and lonely, he’s begun to question the conformity, consumerism, and competitiveness of his conservative, and ultimately cultureless middle-class community. His despairing sense that something, many things are missing from his life leads him into a flirtation with liberal politics and a fling with an attractive and seemingly “bohemian” widow. But he soon finds that his attempts at rebellion may cost more than he is willing to pay. 



The title of
Sinclair Lewis ’s 1922 satire on American materialism added a new word to our vocabulary. “Babbittry” has come to stand for all that’s wrong with a world where the pursuit of happiness means the procurement of things—a world that substitutes “stuff” for “soul.” Some twenty years after
Babbitt’s initial success, critics called Lewis dated and his fiction old-fashioned. But these judgments have come to seem like wishful thinking. With Babbitry evident all around us, the novel is more relevant than ever.


 



Kenneth Krauss teaches drama at the College of Saint Rose, in Albany, New York. His books include
Maxwell Anderson and the New York Stage,
Private Readings/Public Texts, and
The Drama of Fallen France.