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The Minister's Charge
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287 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1886
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About the author
William Dean Howells
1,205 books101 followersWillam Dean Howells (1837-1920) was a novelist, short story writer, magazine editor, and mentor who wrote for various magazines, including the Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine.
In January 1866 James Fields offered him the assistant editor role at the Atlantic Monthly. Howells accepted after successfully negotiating for a higher salary, but was frustrated by Fields's close supervision. Howells was made editor in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881.
In 1869 he first met Mark Twain, which began a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style — his advocacy of Realism — was his relationship with the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who during the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur of the paint business. His social views were also strongly represented in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), and An Imperative Duty (1892). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot.
His poems were collected during 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills was published during 1895. He was the initiator of the school of American realists who derived, through the Russians, from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other type of fiction, although he frequently encouraged new writers in whom he discovered new ideas.
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, Madison Cawein,and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
In 1904 he was one of the first seven people chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.
Howells died in Manhattan on May 11, 1920. He was buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.
Noting the "documentary" and truthful value of Howells' work, Henry James wrote: "Stroke by stroke and book by book your work was to become, for this exquisite notation of our whole democratic light and shade and give and take, in the highest degree documentary."
In January 1866 James Fields offered him the assistant editor role at the Atlantic Monthly. Howells accepted after successfully negotiating for a higher salary, but was frustrated by Fields's close supervision. Howells was made editor in 1871, remaining in the position until 1881.
In 1869 he first met Mark Twain, which began a longtime friendship. Even more important for the development of his literary style — his advocacy of Realism — was his relationship with the journalist Jonathan Baxter Harrison, who during the 1870s wrote a series of articles for the Atlantic Monthly on the lives of ordinary Americans.
He wrote his first novel, Their Wedding Journey, in 1872, but his literary reputation took off with the realist novel A Modern Instance, published in 1882, which described the decay of a marriage. His 1885 novel The Rise of Silas Lapham is perhaps his best known, describing the rise and fall of an American entrepreneur of the paint business. His social views were also strongly represented in the novels Annie Kilburn (1888), A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), and An Imperative Duty (1892). He was particularly outraged by the trials resulting from the Haymarket Riot.
His poems were collected during 1873 and 1886, and a volume under the title Stops of Various Quills was published during 1895. He was the initiator of the school of American realists who derived, through the Russians, from Balzac and had little sympathy with any other type of fiction, although he frequently encouraged new writers in whom he discovered new ideas.
Howells also wrote plays, criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Giovanni Verga, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. He also wrote critically in support of American writers Hamlin Garland, Stephen Crane, Emily Dickinson, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sarah Orne Jewett, Charles W. Chesnutt, Abraham Cahan, Madison Cawein,and Frank Norris. It is perhaps in this role that he had his greatest influence. In his "Editor's Study" column at the Atlantic Monthly and, later, at Harper's, he formulated and disseminated his theories of "realism" in literature.
In 1904 he was one of the first seven people chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became president.
Howells died in Manhattan on May 11, 1920. He was buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.
Noting the "documentary" and truthful value of Howells' work, Henry James wrote: "Stroke by stroke and book by book your work was to become, for this exquisite notation of our whole democratic light and shade and give and take, in the highest degree documentary."
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 30, 2020
(My ranking of Howells' best novels: https://azleslie.com/posts/howells-ra...)
"No man [...] sinned or suffered to himself alone; his error and his pain darkened and afflicted men who never heard of his name. If a community was corrupt, if an age was immoral, it was not because of the vicious, but the virtuous who fancied themselves indifferent spectators."
That recommends itself. This remarkable novel follows a farm-to-city emigree's gradual discovery of the social division of the classes and subsequent attempt to rise. Howells' theme is the complicity of otherwise well meaning people in the social ideas that separate. Lemuel, eventually torn between two courtships, is at once a major victim and a major perpetrator of these prejudices. How much he changes (and how much or little this means for various aquaintances depending on their status) is one of the impressive technical feats of narration here.
"No man [...] sinned or suffered to himself alone; his error and his pain darkened and afflicted men who never heard of his name. If a community was corrupt, if an age was immoral, it was not because of the vicious, but the virtuous who fancied themselves indifferent spectators."
That recommends itself. This remarkable novel follows a farm-to-city emigree's gradual discovery of the social division of the classes and subsequent attempt to rise. Howells' theme is the complicity of otherwise well meaning people in the social ideas that separate. Lemuel, eventually torn between two courtships, is at once a major victim and a major perpetrator of these prejudices. How much he changes (and how much or little this means for various aquaintances depending on their status) is one of the impressive technical feats of narration here.
March 26, 2025
dreiser is better.
May 26, 2019
I've read the novel WDH is most known for, The Rise of Silas Lapham, twice, once as an undergrad English major and again in grad school. I liked it quite a bit, both as an example of 19th century realism and for the story itself. I always meant to read more of Howells's novels, but never did until now nearly twenty years after the first time I read him. I'm of mixed mind about this one. It's the story of a country boy who has literary pretensions coming to the big city of Boston to make his way. As with many big fish in small ponds, he gets his delusions quickly dashed. The minister of the title encouraged him, or rather failed to discourage him, before making his trip to the city. The minister's complicity in Lemuel's troubles all along the way, though he tries to help, is part of the subtle satire throughout. My frustration with the book is the multiple times Lemuel refuses to speak to other characters when he absolutely needed to.
March 3, 2013
In many ways this is a superior novel to Howells's more well-known (formerly canonical) works; primarily, however, I say this because at least, in this satire on organized religion and worldly ministers, the style and tone of the novel remain consistent throughout. However, the novel's plot severely drags through the middle portion, and the end fizzles rather than comes to a proper conclusion. Howells's skewering of the uncharitable attitudes of the clergy is most entertaining, however (my favorite joke being the name of the one Anglican minister, a very minor character: Rev. Seyton; say it aloud...).
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews