“You have done nothing more true and complete, ” wrote Henry James about William Dean Howells’s novel The Kentons. Here, Howells follows a Midwestern family as they travel first to New York and then to Holland—in order to take the daughter, Ellen, away from an abusive relationship. Along the way they explore the contrasts between their Ohio manners and those of the regions they visit, a familiar theme in Howells’s work.
Circa l’autore
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an American novelist and critic. He edited the Atlantic Monthly from 1871-1881, where he championed literary realism and advanced the careers of such important American writers as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Henry James. His best known novel is The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885).