ABSTRACT
Lewis (1885–1951), the American novelist, became in 1930 the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. His contributions to American literature include Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), and Arrowsmith (1925). Lewis and Dos Passos were both satirists, but the latter's experiments in narrative form, and interest in radical political and economic reform, set them apart. Lewis was attacked in the liberal press for having invented characters who were alienated from middle-class society but incapable of imagining an alternative. His comparisons in this review between Dos Passos and other writers (all in Dos Passos's favour) may be indicative of his shortcomings both as a reader and writer.
