This edition of The Rise ofSilas Lapham reprints the text established by Walter J.Meserve and David J. Nordloh for A Selected Edition of W. D. H owells, publishedby Indiana University Press in 1971 and bearing the seal of the MLA Center forEditions of American Authors. The copy-text used by Meserve and Nordloh wasthe novel as it was serialized in the Century Illustrated Magazine in ten install-ments between October 8, 1884, and July 11, 1885. Decisions to emend the serialtext Were based on study of the seven other American and English editions overwhich Howells may have had some control; of Howells' correspondence; and ofrecords of the publishing houses and copyright depositories. To this text extensivehistorical annotations have been added for the Critical Edition.

Preface

The Text of The Rise of Silas Lapham

Textual Note: Hyphenation of Divided Words

Composition and Backgrounds

COMPOSITION

 W. D. Howells · The Rise of Silas Needham

 W. D. Howells · The "Savings Bank" Notebook

 W. D. Howells · Letter to Richard Watson Gilder (July 31, 1884)

 W. D. Howells · Letter to Mark Twain (August 10, 1884)

 W. D. Howells · Letter to Henry James (August 22, 1884)

 Ellen B. Ballou · Gentlemen Publishers

 Illustration: The Counting Room at the Riverside Press in the 1880s

 W. D. Howells · Letter to His Father (August 10, 1884)

 W. D. Howells · [Summer in New York]

 Richard Watson Gilder · Letter to W. D. Howells (February 18, 1885)

 Roswell Smith · Letter to W. D. Howells (February 18, 1885)

 Textual Variations · The Dynamite Passages

 Cyrus L. Sulzberger · Letter to W. D. Howells (July 12, 1885)

 W. D. Howells · Letter to Cyrus L. Sulzberger (July 17, 1885)

 Cyrus L. Sulzberger · Letter to W. D. Howells (July 19, 1885)

 Textual Variations · The Jews

 W. D. Howells and Paul Kester · The Rise of Silas Lapham: A Play

BACKGROUNDS: THE MYTH OF SUCCESS

 Robert Falk · W. D. Howells: Maturity in Fiction

 Clark W. Bryan · The Literature of the Household

 Theodore Dreiser · How He Climbed Fame's Ladder

 Roswell Smith · Letters to W. D. Howells (March 7, 1885-April 6, 1885)

 Robie Macauley · Let Me Tell You About the Rich

Contemporary Responses

FRIENDS AND READERS

 John Hay · Letter to W. D. Howells (April 2, 1885)

 Henry Norman · Letter to W. D. Howells (April 14, 1885)

 William James · Letter to W. D. Howells (March 5. 1885)

 Harold Frederic · Letter to W. D. Howells (May 5, 1885)

 Clarence E. Buel · Letter to W. D. Howells (May 9, 1885)

 W. D. Howells · Letter to Clarence E. Buel (May 11, 1885)

 Owen Wister · Letter to W. D. Howells (May 21, 1885)

 Henry James · Letter to W. D. Howells (May 23, 1885)

THE CRITICS

 William Morton Payne · Recent Fiction

 [A Characteristically American Book]

 Horace Scudder · Recent American Fiction

 [A Literal, Merciless Representation]

 [Novel-Writing as a Science]

 Hamilton Wright Mabie · A Typical Novel

 Maurice Thompson · The Analysts Analyzed

 "Diplomaticus" · A Portrayer of the Commonplace

 Forrest Reid · W. D. Howells

Criticism

CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

 Donald Pizer · The Ethical Unity of The Rise of Sila, Lapham

 William R. Manierre II · The Rise of Silos Lapham: Retrospective Discussion as Dramatic Technique

 John E. Hart - The Commonplace as Heroic in The Rise of Silas Lapham

 Harold H. Kolb · [The Realist's Symbols]

 George N. Bennett · [Family Unity in The Rise of Silas Lapham]

 Everett Carter - [Silas Lapham and the Public Morality]

 G. Thomas Tanselle · The Architecture of The Rise of Silos Lapham

HOWELLS AND THE DILEMMAS OF REALISM

 C. Hugh Holman · Of Everything the Unexplained and Irresponsible Specimen: Notes on How to Read American Realisml

 W. D. Howells · Henry James, Jr.

 Henry James · William Dean Howells

 W. D. Howells · [A Call For Realism]

 Larzer Ziff · [Literary Hospitality: William Dean Howells]

 Edwin H. Cady · The Chief American Realist:1881-1885

 Robert M. Figg Ⅲ · Naturalism as a Literary Form

 Charles L. Campbell · Realism and the Romance of Real Life: Multiple Fictional Worlds in Howells' Novels

Selected Bibliography