Rise of Silas Lapham

Book Description
First published in book form in 1885, William Dean Howells's timeless epic of a self-made man, The Rise of Silas Lapham was the first important novel to center on the American businessman-and the first to treat its theme with a realism that was to foreshadow the work of modern writers.

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Brought up by nothing but hisself.


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Silas Lapham is a rough-hewn entrepreneur who has made his fortune in mineral paint. Socially ambitious for their daughters, Lapham and his wife encourage the suit of Tom Corey, son of an aristocratic Boston family, whose own parents are appalled by his consorting with vulgar upstarts. But which Lapham girl does Tom really love: the pretty blonde Irene or her bookish sister Penelope? As the romantic confusion is sorted out, Lapham suffers calamities that threaten both his financial and personal integrity. His rise is ultimately a moral one. The first major American novel to centre on a businessman, The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885) explores the capitalist ethos of the American Gilded Age. It is also a brilliant novel of manners that shows the comic confrontation of old wealth and new riches.


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