If I Were Boss: The Early Business Stories of Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

Southern Illinois University Press, 1997 - Business enterprises - 363 pages

Anthony Di Renzo makes available for the first time since their original publication some eighty years ago a collection of fifteen of Sinclair Lewis s early business stories.

Among Lewis s funniest satires, these stories introduce the characters, themes, and techniques that would evolve into "Babbitt. "Each selection reflects the commercial culture of Lewis s day, particularly Reason Why advertising, self-help manuals, and the business fiction of the "Saturday Evening Post. "The stories were published between October 1915 and May 1921 (nine in the "Saturday Evening Post, "four in "Metropolitan Magazine, "one in "Harper s Magazine, "and one in "American Magazine)."

Because some things have not changed in the American workplace since Lewis s day, these highly entertaining and unflinchingly accurate office satires will appeal to the fans of "Dilbert "and "The Drew Carey Show. "In a sense, they provide lay readers with an archaeology of white-collar angst and regimentation. The horror and absurdities of contemporary corporate downsizing already existed in the office of the Progressive Era. For an audience contemplating the death of the American middle class, Lewis s stories provide an important retrospective on earlier times and a preliminary autopsy on the American dream.

Appearing just in time to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of "Babbitt, "this collection rescues Lewis s best early short fiction from obscurity, provides extensive information about his formative years in advertising and public relations, and analyzes both his genius for marketing and his carefully cultivated persona as the Great Salesman of American letters."

Contents

• 9 17: 9
• Nature Inc: 22
• Were Boss: 42

About the author

Harry Sinclair Lewis was born on February 7, 1885 in Minnesota. He was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. A lonely child, Lewis immersed himself in reading and diary writing. While studying at Yale University and living in writer Upton Sinclair's communal house, he wrote for Yale Literary Magazine and helped to build the Panama Canal. After graduating from Yale in 1908, Lewis began writing fiction, publishing 22 novels by the end of his career. His early works, while often praised by literary critics, did not reach popularity but with Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929), Sinclair Lewis achieved fame as a writer. His style of choice was satire; he explored American small-town life, conformity, hypocrisy, and materialism. Sinclair Lewis was married and divorced twice. As his career wound down, he spent his later life in Europe and died in Rome on January 10, 1951.

Bibliographic information

• Title: If I Were Boss: The Early Business Stories of Sinclair Lewis
• Author: Sinclair Lewis
• Editor: Anthony Di Renzo
• Contributor: Anthony Di Renzo
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Mar 10, 2008
• ISBN: 0809321386, 9780809321384
• Length: 363 pages