000 03231cam a22003613u 4500
001 78707
003 UtSlPG
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040 _aUtSlPG
041 7 _aen
_2iso639-1
050 4 _aPS
100 1 _aDell, Floyd,
_d1887-1969
245 1 0 _aUpton Sinclair
264 1 _aSalt Lake City, UT :
_bProject Gutenberg,
_c2026
300 _a1 online resource :
_bmultiple file formats
336 _atext
_btxt
_2rdacontent
337 _acomputer
_bc
_2rdamedia
338 _aonline resource
_bcr
_2rdacarrier
490 1 _aThe Murray Hill biographies
500 _aRelease date is 2026-05-19
508 _aSean (@parchmentglow)
520 _a"Upton Sinclair" by Floyd Dell is a critical biography written in the early 20th century. Framed as “A Study in Social Protest,” it presents Sinclair as the chief literary interpreter of modern industrial America, exploring why he became celebrated abroad while remaining contested at home. Blending biography with literary criticism, it follows his Southern roots, Puritan temperament, radicalization, and major writings to explain his stature in an age of class conflict and social reform. The opening of the book explains Sinclair’s world reputation by arguing that his novels and pamphlets most vividly describe and interpret industrial America, placing him alongside Cooper, Mark Twain, and Whitman, while noting Europe’s Voltairean respect for engaged writers. It contrasts this with American hesitations: his class-struggle lens, lingering Puritan streak, and unorthodox embrace of machine civilization. The narrative then turns biographical, tracing his Confederate-tinged Baltimore heritage, a proud but alcoholic father and temperance-minded mother, and the boy’s painful awareness of poverty against wealthy relatives. It follows his move to New York, refuge in books (Jesus, Thackeray, Hamlet), early brilliance at City College, disillusion with formal instruction, and embrace of democratic ideals colored by aristocratic pride. Dell recounts the youthful hack years of jokes and dime novels at staggering pace, the ensuing revolt for serious art, language self-education, and the first earnest novel begun in a Quebec cabin. He sketches Sinclair’s ascetic fear of sex, ideal of a pure “mate,” the austere courtship with “Corydon,” their marriage amid poverty, private publication and begging letters, the birth of a son, and a grudging return to hackwork. The section closes with his move to a shack near Princeton and a homespun manifesto on living simply, signaling a more human, domestically tempered phase in the making of the social novelist. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
534 _pOriginally published:
_cNew York: George H. Doran Company, 1927
653 _aSocial problems in literature
653 _aSinclair, Upton, 1878-1968 -- Political and social views
653 _aLiterature and society -- United States -- History -- 20th century
830 0 _aThe Murray Hill biographies
856 4 _uhttps://archive.org/details/uptonsinclairstu0000floy/page/n7/mode/2up
856 4 0 _uhttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78707
999 _c119425
_d119425