Other editions of book The rise of Silas Lapham

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells. The Rise of Silas Lapham is a realist novel by William Dean Howells published in 1885. The story follows the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter's marriage into the aristocratic Corey family. Silas' morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers. Howells is known to be the father of American realism, and a denouncer of the sentimental novel. The resolution of the love triangle of Irene Lapham, Tom Corey, and Penelope Lapham highlights Howells' rejection of the conventions of sentimental romantic novels as unrealistic and deceitful.

The classic novel about an ordinary man’s ascent into wealthy Boston circles, and its effect on him and his family.Thanks to hard work and good fortune, Silas Lapham succeeds financially in the paint business. But money and class are not the same thing, and the Laphams struggle to feel they truly fit in amid New England’s social aristocracy. When they move into a luxurious home in the elite Back Bay neighborhood, they soon have a young patrician in their lives, a potential suitor for their daughter. But Tom Corey’s intentions are not quite what they think, and after much upheaval, the Laphams are left to contemplate how their change in status has altered their lives forevermore, in this landmark of nineteenth-century American literature.