HOWELLS, WILLIAM DEAN American novelist, was born at Martin's Ferry (0.), March 1, 1837. His father, William Cooper Howells, a printer-journalist, moved in 1840 to Hamilton (0.) , and here the boy's early life was spent as type-setter, reporter, and editor in the offices of various news papers. In the midst of routine work he contrived to familiarize himself with a wide range of authors in several modern tongues, and to drill himself thoroughly in the use of good English. In 186o, as assistant editor of the leading Republican newspaper in Ohio, he wrote—in connection with the Presidential contest— The Campaign Life of Lincoln. In the same year he was appointed consul at Venice, where he remained till 1865. On his return to America he joined the staff of the Atlantic Monthly, and from 1872 to 1881 was its editor-in-chief. From 1885 until his death on May 11, 1920, he lived in New York. For a time he conducted for Harper's Magazine the department called "The Editor's Study," and in Dec. 1 goo he revived for the same periodical the department of "The Easy Chair," which had lapsed with the death of George William Curtis. In 1915 he received the gold medal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters for his work in fiction. Of Mr. Howells's many novels, the following may be mentioned as especially noteworthy: Their Wedding Journey (1872) ; The Lady of the Aroostook (1879) ; A Modern Instance (1882) ; The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) ; The Minister's Charge (1886) ; A Hazard of New Fortunes (1889) ; The Quality of Mercy (1892) ; The Landlord at Lion's Head (1897). He also published Poems (1873 and 1886) ; Stops of Various Quills (1895), a book of verse; books of travel; several amusing farces, and volumes of essays and literary criticism, among others, Literary Friends and Acquaintance which contains much autobio graphical matter; Literature and Life (1902) ; and English Films (1905) . His later works included My Mark Twain (1910) ; Imag inary Interviews (I 91o) ; Parting Friends; a Farce (I 91I) ; Familiar Spanish Travels (1913); New Leaf Mills; a Chronicle (1913) ; The Seen and Unseen of Stratford-on-Avon; a Fantasy (1g14); The Daughter of the Storage and Other Things in Prose and Verse OW) 16) ; The Leatherwood God (1916) and Years of My Youth (1916). In 1920 he edited with an introduction The Great Modern American Stories. He left unfinished Years of My Middle Life.
Howells was long considered the foremost representative of the realistic school of indigenous American fiction. Though in his earliest novels his method was not consistently realistic—he was at times almost as personal and whimsical as Thackeray—yet his vivid impressionism and his choice of subjects, as well as an oc casional explicit protest that "dulness is dear to him," already revealed unmistakably his realistic bias. In A Modern Instance (1882) he gained complete command of his method, and began a series of studies of American life remarkable for their loyalty to fact, and their power to reveal both the springs of American character and the sociological forces shaping American civilization. He refused to over-sophisticate or to over-intellectualize his char acters, and he was very sparing in his use of psychological an alysis. He insisted on seeing and portraying American life under its own skies and with its own atmosphere ; he did not scrutinize it with foreign comparisons in mind, and thus try to find and to throw into relief unsuspected configurations of surface. He kept his dialogue toned down almost to the pitch of everyday conver sation, although he has shown in his comedy sketches how easy a master he was of adroit and witty talk.
See also J. M. Robertson, Essays towards a Critical Method (1889) ; H. C. Vedder, American Writers (Boston, 1894) ; D. G. Cooke, William Dean Howells (1922) ; Oscar W. Firkins, William Dean Howells (1924) ; H. T. and W. Follet, Some Modern Novelists (191g) ; and William Dean Howells; Life in Letters, edited by his daughter Mildred Howells (1928).