William Dean Howells

Howells spent several years in Italy, including a stint as United States consul in Venice. He used Italy as the backdrop in several works, including his novel Ragged Lady, the story of a young woman from New England who travels to Venice to meet her future husband.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Howells was appointed United States consul in Venice, Italy. In Venetian Life, an utterly engaging travelogue, Howells revises a series of travel letters he had written about his experiences in Venice for the Boston Advertiser. Honest in its love for (yet discomfort in) Venice, it would be followed by Italian Journeys.

One of the most influential authors of the late nineteenth century, and a former editor of the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine, William Dean Howells wrote more than fifty novels, as well as plays, memoirs, and poetry collections. Opposed to the sentimentalism, contrived heroism, and theatrical endings in fiction, he developed a literary style based on unvarnished realism. This unique genre is brilliantly depicted in A Modern Instance, a novel...

They had agreed to make their wedding-journey in the simplest and quietest way, and as it took place some weeks later than their wedding, it had all the desired charm of privacy from the outset. Their Wedding Journey, is a gently humorous book following the journey of two newlyweds, Isabel and Basil.

This 1907 utopian romance is the final volume in the trilogy that includes A traveler from Alturia (1894) and Letters of an Alturian traveler (1904). The novel takes the form of letters from the protagonist, Aristides Homos, to his friend Cyril. In New York City, Homos falls in love with Evelith Strange, a socialite whose lifestyle conflicts with her Christian values values that Homos could help her regain back in utopian Alturia, if she accepts his...

Some of William Dean Howells's best fiction examines the contrast between different manners or levels of sophistication, a subject made familiar to him in part by his sojourn as an American in Italy. This collection of stories shows American and Italian manners in conflict, drawing on Howells's own experiences as a diplomat in Venice.

A naïve Massachusetts schoolteacher sails to Italy, where she is harassed by a drunk and meets a Boston socialite who will become her husband. The Lady of the Aroostook explores a favorite theme of Howells-conflicting social habits, in this case those of the American village and those of the American city.