Babbitt.

LEWIS, Sinclair.

Item Number: 146129

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922.

First edition, first issue of with “Purdy” for “Lyte” on Page 49 line 4 & “my” on line 5. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with chips and wear. From the library of Steve Forbes. A very sharp example.

With Babbitt (1922) Sinclair Lewis consolidated the reputation he had earned with his first best-selling novel, Main Street (1920). Like Main Street, Babbitt not only became a best seller, but it generated controversy, became a US cultural phenomenon, and eventually contributed a new word to the language. (Although the word “babbitt” has come to mean a “smugly conventional person,” George F. Babbitt is a more complex individual – and more troubled – than the dictionary definition would suggest.) Babbitt is the story of a middle-aged real estate broker who faces a series of psychological crises that reveal to him the emptiness of his superficially successful and prosperous life (Fleming).