The Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter is published twice a year under the auspices of the Publications Unit of the English Department at Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240. Each issue of the The Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter includes scholarly essays on Lewis’s writings, mentions of Lewis in the news and in scholarship, and news of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis’s hometown. There are occasional features on how to teach Lewis’s works and news for book collectors, as well as calls for papers. Departments in most issues include Sinclair Lewis Miscellany, It Can’t Happen Here News, Inquiring Minds (queries received), Book Notes, and What Were They Reading Then? —short essays about books popular when Lewis was writing.
For more information, visit The Sinclair Lewis Society website.
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 33, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
"Sinclair Lewis Conference to be Held in Sauk Centre in July 2025"
"Sinclair Lewis and the American Mind," by Greg Davis
"What Were They Reading Then?: Pioneer Realism: A Lantern in Her Hand by Bess Streeter Aldrich" by Ted G. Fleener
"All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: An American Literature Scholar in Germany During World War II"
"Sinclair Lewis: Chess's Red Master," by Shaun F. Richards
"Breaking into Print"
"What Were They Reading Then?: How to Get to the Top of the Heap: What Makes Sammy Run? by Budd Schulberg" by Sally E. Parry
"Mantrap: The Move"
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 32, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Taking a Chance on Love: A Review of the Play Free Air,” by Deborah Brown
“Lewis on Stage: In the Audience for Free Air and Babbitt,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Quiet Desperation: Matthew Broderick’s George Babbitt Conforms to Stage,” by Cassandra Csencsitz
“Nothing in Particular: A Review of Joe DiPietro’s Play at the La Jolla Playhouse,” by Ralph Goldstein
“Lewis and Rome”
“Move of Arrowsmith Restored”
“Danny Klecko and Sinclair Lewis”
“It Can’t Happen Here in Smithsonian Magazine”
In Memoriam: Carol Dahlquist
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 32, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“New Play Based on Novel and Film of Sinclair Lewis’s Free Air,” by John Loch, Rosemount Area Arts Council
“The Filming of the Silent Movie of Sinclair Lewis’s Free Air,” by John Loch, Rosemount Area Arts Council
“George Macy’s Readers Club (1941-1943) and Sinclair Lewis,” by Shaun F. Richards, Finger Lakes Community College
“Lost Boundaries“
“Making Her Way in the Big City: Carrie Meeber in Sister Carrie and Una Golden in The Job,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Favorite Books by Our Members”
“Literary Legends: Poll of Minnesotans Reveals Sinclair Lewis as the State’s Favorite Author of All Time”
“The (Self-) Importance of Being American: A Lesser-Known Lewis Essay on the American Expatriate Artists in 1920s Paris,” by Shaun F. Richards Finger Lakes Community College
In Memoriam: Benjamin R. Beede and Robert Gottlieb
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 31, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Translating Arrowsmith: An Interview with Rusty Allred”
“A Contemporary Review of Lewis’s Biography: Charles Shain’s Review of Sinclair Lewis: An American Life by Mark Shorer,” By Shaun F. Richards
“Lewis and Thompson Featured in Freedom’s Furies: A Review of Freedom’s Furies: How Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand Found Liberty in an Age of Darkness by Timothy Sandefur,” by Ralph Goldstein
“Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and “The Slap Heard ‘Round the World'”
“What Were They Reading Then?: Raw Gold by James B. Hendryx,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Lewis’s Additions to the New Republic‘s “‘Good Books That Almost Nobody Has Read'”
“Sinclair Lewis Letters Online at St. Cloud State University,” by Tom Steman, St. Cloud State University
“New Adaptation of Babbitt to Be Staged at La Jolla Playhouse”
In Memoriam: Eugene H. Winick
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 31, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Real America: A Speech about Sinclair Lewis by Lion Feuchtwanger,” with an introduction and translation by Sean Nye, University of Southern California
“‘Good Morning, America!’: A Retrospective of the 2022 Sinclair Lewis Virtual Conference,” by Shaun F. Richards
“Opening Remarks for the 2022 Sinclair Lewis Conference,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Three Midwestern Playwrights: How Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell Transformed American Theatre,” by Marcia Noe
“Robert L. McLaughlin’s Sinclair Lewis Scholarship”
“Play of Main Street Produced at University of Minnesota Duluth,” by George Killough, College of St. Scholastica
“Revisiting Sinclair Lewis’s Kingsblood Royal,” by Andy Kantar, Ferris State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: “Look Homeward, Angel,” by Thomas Wolfe, 1929,” by Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 30, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Backstage with The Life and Loves of Sinclair Lewis“
“Sinclair Lewis Society Announces Virtual Conference for Summer 2022”
“Remembering Daniel Chabris”
“Letter from the Editor: Sinclair Lewis Society Celebrates 30 Years!,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“New York Times Book Review Celebrates Lewis and Babbitt“
“Babbitt and Thucydides?,” by Rex Levang
“Significant Writer: Flawed Man: A Review of The Life and Loves of Sinclair Lewis by Bob Beverage,” by Sean C. Denniston
“Sinclair Lewis’s Leading Ladies: Part I: Irene Dunne: Perfect Lady, as Ann Vickers, 1933,” by Susan K. O’Brien
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 30, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“The Life and Loves of Sinclair Lewis Celebrates the Life of Sinclair Lewis 100 Years after the Publication of Main Street“
“Minnesota Historical Society Features Exhibit on Sinclair Lewis”
“A Complex Year for a Celebration: A Review of Isabel Marín Gómez’s ‘Sinclair Lewis and Main Street in Spain: The Contribution of the Literature of Social Change on Contemporary History,” La Razón Histórica 49, 2020, by Ralph Goldstein
“Helen Hayes and Vaccination,” by Susan O’Brien
“Calliing Dr. de Kruif: A Review of A Constant State of Emergency: Paul de Kruif: Microbe Hunter and Health Activist, by Jan Peter Verhave,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“What Were They Reading Then?: “It,” by Elinor Glyn, 1927,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Red’s Visit to Riotous Vienna: The July Revolt of 1927,” by Bernhard Wenzl
“A Tribute to John-Paul Sinclair Lewis”
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol 29, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“‘She Was a Worker in the Theater’: Backstage Industry and the Stage-Struck Girl in Sinclair Lewis’s Bethel Merriday,” by Maya Cantu, Bennington College
“Dr. Arrowsmith Hangs Out His Shingle,” by Dennis Morgan, MD
“He Was an Atheist; Oh Yes, He Really Was,” by Dennis Dalman
“Sister Mara Helped Shaped Book on Sinclair Lewis,” by Dennis Dalman
“Marcella Powers: Life after Sinclair Lewis,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 29, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
"Arrowsmith Endures in the Pandemic,” by Ralph Goldstein
“Mr. Lewis Goes to China: Studying Sinclair Lewis’s Novels in China,” by Chen Ying, College of Foreign Languages, Inner Mongolia University, China
“Introducing Sinclair Lewis”: A Review of Becoming Sinclair Lewis by David Allen Simpkins, with Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University and Jim Umhoefer, by Ted G. Fleener
“Trapped on Main Street,” a Conversation
“What Were They Reading Then?: Parnassus on Wheels and The Haunted Bookshop, by Christopher Morley, 1917 and 1919,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Lewis and Thompson and the Writers’ War Board,” by Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University
“The Filming of Free Air”
“An Interview with Ken Cuthbertson, Author of Inside: The Biography of John Gunther,” by Susan O’Brien
“Sinclair Lewis as Seen through the Eyes of Ernest Hemingway’s Biographers,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Sinclair Lewis, Dante, and the Jews,” a discussion by Mark Bernheim, Sally E. Parry, and Ralph Goldstein
“Sinclair Lewis,” by George Simmers from Great War Fiction Plus
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
Main Street Turns 100!
“Sinclair Lewis at the Library”
“John Gunther and Sinclair Lewis,” by Susan O’Brien
“Teaching Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man Following Sinclair Lewis’s Kingsblood Royal,” by Paul Devlin, Merchant Marine Academy
“Sinclair Lewis at the American Literature Association Conference”
“Alcohol and the Literary Imagination: A Review of Alcoholite at the Altar: The Writer and Addiction, by Roger Forseth,” by Jimmy J. Pack, Jr., Penn State Abington
“What Were They Reading Then?: The Tyranny of the Dark, by Hamlin Garland, 1905,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: The Voice of Bugle Ann, by MacKinlay Kantor, 1935,” by Ted G. Fleener
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Zenith on the Liffey: Sinclair Lewis and James Joyce,” by Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University
“Lewis’s Lasting Conocimiento: Ann Vickers in Spain,” by Ralph Goldstein
“Book Burning: Not the Spark of Fascism but the Ashes of Democracy,” by Andrew Stevens, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: Weeds by Edith Summers Kelley, 1923,” by Rebecca Pugsley, College of St. Scholastica
“Dorothy Thompson and Her Advice to American Women,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Why Writer Sinclair Lewis Keeps Paying Dividends from Pittsfield, and Will Forever,” by Larry Parnass, the Berkshire Eagle
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 27, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
Tributes to Joyce Lyng and Jacqueline Koenig
“On the Road Again: A Review of Adventures in Autobumming by Sinclair Lewis,” by Maggie Bandur
“Pointy Hats and Pointed Purpose: How the Klan of the 1920s Fulfilled the Warnings of Sinclair Lewis,” by Bob Ruggiero
“Publish and Perish: The Remarkably Parallel Lives, and Deaths, of Sinclair Lewis and Stefan Zweig,” by Roy Lacoursiere
“Sinclair Lewis and Dave Simpkins: Two Old Newspapermen,” by Jim Umhoefer
“Dorothy Thompson and Germany: A Review of Dorothy Thompson and German Writers in Defense of Democracy by Karina von Tippelskirch,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 26, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Tribute to Dave Simpkins”
“Fresh Pastures: Sinclair Lewis Buys Thorvale Farm,” by Susan O’Brien
“Straight Out of South Dakota: A Review of From Warm Center to Ragged Edge: The Erosion of Midwestern Literary and Historical Regionalism, 1920-1965 by Jon K. Lauk,” by Ralph Goldstein
“Ruth Suckow: Iowa Gem,” by Ted G. Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools (retired)
“What Were They Reading Then?: A Preface to Morals by Walter Lippmann, 1929,” by Rick Diguette, Georgia State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: Country People by Ruth Suckow, 1924,” by Ted G. Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools (retired)
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 26, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“It Happened Here: Sinclair Lewis, White Nationalism, and the 2016 Presidential Election,” by Anthony Di Renzo, Ithaca College
“Sinclair Lewis in Business and Politics: A Great Success,” by Alexis Foran and Taneka Newman, Illinois State University
“Gideon Planish as Part of Lewis’s Critique of Language,” by George Killough, College of St. Scholastica
“German Author Weighs in on It Can’t Happen Here,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“Mary Astor, Edith Cortright, and Dodsworth,” Two Reviews of Mary Astor’s Purple Diary: The Great American Sex Scandal of 1936, by Edward Sorel
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 25, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Sinclair Lewis Conference 2017: Lewis in Business and Politics”
“Sinclair Lewis’s Romantic Role-Playing: Reading the Lewis Correspondence to Marcella Powers (1939-1947),” by Constance M. Perry, St. Cloud State University
“Lewis’s Problems Are Still Our Problems,” A Review of Sinclair Lewis and American Democracy by Steven Michels,” by Ralph Goldstein, California State University-Los Angeles
“‘Publicist in Fiction’: Sinclair Lewis’s Use of Rhetorical and Newspaper Style Forms in Babbitt,” by Narine Zakaryan and Ann Yeganyan, Yerevan State University, Armenia
“Roger Forseth, Acclaimed Lewis Scholar, Dies”
“The Many Lives of Floyd Dell,” by Ted Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools (retired)
“It Can’t Happen Here News”
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 25, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Anthony Di Renzo to Be Keynote Speaker at Sinclair Lewis Conference 2017”
“Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s Adaptation of It Can’t Happen Here,” by Ralph Goldstein, California State University-Los Angeles
“The Low-Down on Lewis,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“Is Sinclair Lewis ‘Not Much Read’ Anymore?,” by Ralph Goldstein, California State University-Los Angeles
“Lewis and Roth on American Dictators”
“Translation and Culture: Main Street Goes to China,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“It Can’t Happen Here Staged Readings Sweep the Nation”
“The Runestone of Alexandria and Sinclair Lewis”
“What Were They Reading Then?: Calling Dr. Nietzsche: A Review of Man with Red Hair by Hugh Walpole, 1925,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Arrowsmith, A Synergy of Talents,” by Jan Peter Verhave, Van Raalte Institute, Hope College
“Babbitt in Paperback, 1946,” by Roger Lathbury, George Mason University
“Carl Van Vechten, Sinclair Lewis, and The Tattooed Countess,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson, 1923,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow, 1941,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: Moon-Calf by Floyd Dell, 1920,” by Ted G. Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools
“Sinclair Lewis and the Novel”
Conference announcement: Sinclair Lewis Conference 2017: Lewis in Business and Politics
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 24, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Death, Home, and House in 1920s Materialistic America,” by Wisam Chaleila, KU Leuven, Belgium
“Sinclair Lewis Center Closes: Museum Artifacts Now Scattered throughout Town,” by Dave Simpkins, Sauk Centre Herald
“George Babbitt and Almus Pickerbaugh as Representatives of Standardized Society,” by Narine Zakaryan and Ann Yeganyan, Yerevan State University, Armenia
“Picturing the Story: A Review of Magazine Illustrators of Sinclair Lewis’s Short Fiction: A Case History of Early 20th Century Popular Art,” by Bob Ruggiero
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Casting Newer Psychiatric Light on Sinclair Lewis,” by Roy Lacoursiere
“The Babbitization of America: Rev. of The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books by Azar Nafisi,” by Dave Simpkins
“New Attention to Babbitt within Azar Nafisi’s The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books,” by Ralph Goldstein, California State University, Los Angeles
“Elmer Gantry Joins the Gospel Choir: A Review of Elmer Gantry, the Musical,” by Sean C. Denniston
“Technical Advisor for Elmer Gantry: Jim Grebe’s Democracy’s Defender: The Life of L. M. Birkhead,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“Cass Timberlane and Dodsworth Cited as Good Marriage Movies,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“What Were They Reading Then?: Love in Greenwich Village by Floyd Dell,” by Ted G. Fleener, Waterloo Community Schools
“American Dystopia: Review of Claire Sprague’s It Can Happen Here: Jack London, Sinclair Lewis, Philip Roth,” by Joshua P. Preston, Baylor College
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Sinclair Lewis’s Former Greenwich Village Home Designated as Historic Literary Site,” by Dave Simpkins and Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
Remarks Given at the Lewis Medallion Ceremony, May 9, 2014, by Richard Lingeman
“Sinclair Lewis in New York City,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University “Pluralistic Narrative Strategies of ‘Modern Realism’ in Sinclair Lewis’s Novels,” by Haiou Yang, Huaihua University
Statement for the Sinclair Lewis Cultural Medallion Ceremony, by Anthony Di Renzo, Ithaca College
“Translating Lewis into English: Two Poems: ‘The Student’s Song’ and ‘To Twenty-One,'” by Joshua P. Preston, Baylor College
“Sinclair Lewis Locations in New York City”
“Why Read ‘Moldy’ Old Sinclair Lewis?,” by Dennis Dalman, Newsleader, Sartell and St. Joseph, Minnesota
“‘Peasant and Cockney’: Mencken’s Unknown Review of Main Street,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 22, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Modern Science and Biblical Literalism in Arrowsmith and Elmer Gantry,” by Albert H. Tricomi, Binghamton University
“A Book Club Visit to Main Street: One Reader’s Unsettling Journey,” by Mary-Margaret Simpson
“‘Ein Schlager!’: The Seralization of Sinclair Lewis’s Novel Das ist bei uns Nicht Moglich in the New York Neue Volks-Zeitung (1937-38),” by Jorg Thunecke, Nottingham Trent University, and Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“Lewis as the Man Who Knew Coolidge,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“It Can’t Happen Here in Hollywood”
“The Fascinating Ruth Chatterton,” by Susan O’Brien
“Lewis and Albert Payson Terhune Write Dad,” by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 22, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Mencken’s Market Tip for Lewis,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
“Minnesota Association of Library Friends and Partners Dedicate Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home as Minnesota’s Fourth American Library Association ‘Literary Landmark'”
“Lewis Home Named Literary Landmark,” by Dave Simpkins, Sauk Centre Herald
“What Were They Reading Then?: Alexander’s Bridge by Willa Cather”
“‘This red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds’: A Lost Epithet for Sinclair Lewis,” by Frederick Betz, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 21, No. 2
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“In Defense of Gopher Prairie: Main Street as a Critique of Urban Culture,” by James Nixon, Glasgow University
“Red in Retrospect”: A Review of Sinclair Lewis Remembered, edited by Gary Scharnhorst and Matthew Hofer, by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“You Should Remember This”: A Review of The Noir Forties: The American People from Victory to Cold War by Richard Lingeman, by Sally E. Parry, Illinois State University
“Cass: Anatomy of a Moniker,” by Charles Pankenier
“Twin Farms Today,” by Susan O’Brien
“Sarcastic but Sympathetic, Babbitt is Premier Middle-Class Novel,” by Mark Roth
“Barnaby Conrad, Lewis’s Secretary, Dies at 90”
“Lewis’s St. Augustine House for Sale”
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Sinclair Lewis Society Newsletter, Vol. 21, No. 1
The Sinclair Lewis Society
“Theater, Community, War, and Mr. Lewis,” by Robert L. McLaughlin, Illinois State University
“Main Street to Eighth Street: Lewis House and St. Cloud’s South Side Neighborhood,” by Alex L. Ames, St. Cloud State University Foundation
“Sugar House in Barnard to Be Tribute to Sinclair Lewis,” by Katie Beth Ryan, Valley News (Vermont)
“Glenway Wescott: One of Lewis’s Contemporaries of the 1920s,” by Steve Paragamian
“Main Street Original: Roberg Wins Original Copy of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street,” by Dave Simpkins, Sauk Centre Herald
“Lewis and the Jewish Novel,” Abstracts from the Sinclair Lewis Panel Presented at the American Literature Association Conference:
“Scientific Properties: Arrowsmith and the Ownership of Knowledge,” by Brian Matzke, University of Michigan
“‘Think What the Baby Will See’: Feminine Desire and Futurity in Main Street,” by Corinne Martin, Ohio State University
“Use Her Eyes, Use Her Voice, Use Her Soul: Gendered Cons and the Economics of Evangelism in Elmer Gantry,” by Matthew Seybold, University of California-Irvine