Minnesota Author Biographies Project: Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis

Biographical Notes

Date of birth: February 7, 1885, Sauk Center, Minnesota
Date of death: January 10, 1951, Rome, Italy

Harry Sinclair Lewis. Author. Left Sauk Center in1903, to enter Yale University, graduating in 1908. Worked as a reporter and was employed by a number of publishing companies. Began publishing stories regularly in 1915. Recognition as a serious author began in 1920 with the publication of his novel Main Street; his satirical treatment of the American small town, modeled on Sauk Center, was controversial. Arrowsmith, published in 1925, won the Pulitzer Prize, but he turned it down. In 1930 he became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in recognition of his book Babbitt. Lived for short periods of time in Minneapolis and Duluth. Six of his twenty-two novels are set wholly or in part in Minnesota.

Selected Works

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Sinclair Lewis book cover

Additional Resources

Search PALS Catalog for author Searches for works by this author cover the entire PALS online catalog system.
Minnesota Historical Society Visual Resources Database
Lewis Family Papers
The Minnesota Backgrounds of Sinclair Lewis' Fiction by John Theodore Flanagan
Sinclair Lewis, an American Life by Mark Schorer
Sinclair Lewis: A Descriptive Bibliography by Stephen R. Pastore
With Love from Gracie. Sinclair Lewis: 1912-1925 by Grace Hegger Lewis
'Babbitt'
Online text of Lewis book Babbitt
Language of the Land Project Lancelot
Lewis poem "Launcelot"
'Mainstreet'
Online text of Lewis book Main Street
'Our Mr. Wren'
Online text of Lewis book Our Mr. Wrenn
Sinclair Lewis
Sauk Center's Lewis web page
Sinclair Lewis
Biographical Lewis web page
Sinclair Lewis Winner of the 1930 Nobel Prize
Nobel prize pages about Lewis
The Sinclair Lewis Homepage
Lewis home page

Sources used to prepare this author entry

The following bibliography may include links to Web sites that are no longer operable or have changed location. The sources are shown as they existed in the fall of 1999 when the entries were compiled.

Barron, Ron. A Guide to Minnesota Writers: Expanded and Revised. Minnesota: Minnesota Council of Teachers of English, 1993.
Burnquist, Joseph A. A. Minnesota and Its People. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1924.
Christianson, Theodore. Minnesota: The Land of Sky-tinted Waters: A History of the State and its People. Chicago: American Historical Society, 1935.
"(Harry) Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951)," 1997. Online. Accessed 18 Aug. 1999. http://kirjasto.sci.fi/slewis.htm
Koblas, John J. Home at Last. Bloomington, Minn: Voyageur Press, 1981.
Millett, Fred B. Contemporary American Authors. New York: AMS Press, 1940.
Minneapolis Star, 10 Jan. 1951, p. 1.
Minnesota Authors. St. Paul: Library Division, State Department of Education, 1934.
Minnesota History. Vol. 34, p. 85-95.
Minnesota History. Vol. 37, p. 1-13.
Minnesota History. Vol. 43, p. 223.
O'Connor, William Van, ed. A History of the Arts in Minnesota. p. 23. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958.
Perry, Sally. "The Sinclair Lewis Homepage," 30 Oct. 1998. Online. Accessed 18 Aug. 1999. http://www.ilstu.edu/~separry/lewis.html
St. Paul Dispatch, 10 Jan. 1951, p. 1.
Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis, an American Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963.
Van Doren, Charles, ed. Webster's American Biographies. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1975.

This pilot database compiled and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society.