A Hazard of New Fortunes (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: William Dean Howells
- First Published: 1889
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: Values, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Socialism, Nineteenth century, New York City, Autobiography, Publishing or publishers, Millionaires, Strikes or lockouts
- Locales: New York, NY
Using the execution of Chicago's Haymarket anarchists, the Brooklyn trolley-car strike of 1889, and the legendary greed of the Gilded Age as backdrops, A Hazard of New Fortunes follows the struggles of fifteen major characters to establish a national magazine in New York City. These major characters, along with a substantial cast of minor ones, become a microcosm for Howells's indictment of the American scramble for success.
In order to manage all the materials involved in this, his longest novel, Howells divided the book into five parts. In parts 1, 2, and 3, the...
[The entire page is 938 words long]
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