In the Midwestern city of Zenith, the middle-aged real-estate agent George F. Babbitt appears to have achieved the American dream: he has a wife and children, a car and a neat house with a neat yard; he is successful at work, comfortably off, exceedingly well fed and a proud member of all the right clubs – in short, he has all he needs to be happy. Or does he? As we follow his humdrum daily routine and startling events begin to unfold around him, we discover that all is not well in Babbitt’s world: his moral foundations are shaking, and he can’t help harbouring rebellious dreams of escape and romance.
A trenchant satire on the consumer society and an indictment of the fatuous ideals of Middle America in the Roaring Twenties, Babbitt – the crowning achievement of Sinclair Lewis, winner of the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature – questions the attractions of materialistic fulfilment, at the same time laying bare the hollowness of social respectability and blind conformism.
ABOUT THE SERIES: Alma Evergreens is a series of popular classics. All the titles in the series are provided with an extensive critical apparatus, extra reading material including a section of photographs and notes. The texts are based on the most authoritative edition (or collated from the most authoritative editions or manuscripts) and edited using a fresh, intelligent editorial approach. With an emphasis on the production, editorial and typographical values of a book, Alma Classics aspires to revitalize the whole experience of reading the classics.
ISBN: | 9781847498779 |
Publication date: | 24th March 2022 |
Author: | Sinclair Lewis |
Publisher: | Alma Classics an imprint of Alma Books Ltd |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 329 pages |
Series: | Alma Classics Evergreens |
Primary Genre | Classic fiction: general and literary |
Other Genres: |