William Dean Howells (Martinsville, Ohio), March 1, 1837 - New York City, May 11, 1920) was an American realistic author, publisher and literary critic. His most famous works are A Modern Instance (1882) and The Rise of Silas Lapham (1885).
Howells was the second child of a total of eight children. The family moved on a regular basis, for example, for some time in the Utopian community of Eureka Mills. He learned from his father's writer that he was an editor and writer. In addition, he taught himself different languages including German. He began writing short poems and articles published in various newspapers.
National fame acquired Howells with a biography of then presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. With the money he earned with this, he paid a move to New England. There he became acquainted with several famous writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Sarah Orne Jewett.
In 1861 and 1865 Howells lived in Italy where he knew his wife Elinor Mead, with whom he later received three children. After returning to the United States, he became publisher of The Atlantic Monthly magazine. Thanks to this influential position as publisher of a literary magazine, he learned to know many writers with whom he became friends, such as Mark Twain and Henry James. Howells became an important advocate of realism in literature.
In 1881 Howells stopped at The Atlantic Monthly and published his work in various regional magazines. At the same time, he supported regional authors and helped them to spend their work.
As a reward for his work, Howells became the first president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1908. This academy also recognized its commitment and introduced the William Dean Howells Medal in 1915, a five-year award for the most important American fiction work.
Howells died on May 11, 1920, of the effects of pneumonia. Wikisource
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