The Adventures of a Suburbanite

First published in 1911, The Adventures of a Suburbanite is one of the entertaining satirical books that made Ellis Parker Butler so popular in his time and it accounts for his popularity today, too.The world of city suburbs is a really special one. It is full of characters that are superficial, but deep at the same time, vain, but self-sacrificing when need be. Ellis Parker Butler uses his own special type of insight and his sensitivity to the absurd to present this world and its inhabitants – middle-class heroes, colorful and entertaining characters than can be deeply loved and fiercely criticized at the same time.The Adventures of a Suburbanite is a very typical story by Ellis Parker Butler, so if you like the style and the attitude, you will surely love the author’s other pieces as well. When it comes to the oeuvre of Ellis Parker Butler, there are a lot of writings to choose from – he published over 30 books and over 2,000 short stories in his lifetime. During his four-decades long career, he wrote not only fiction – his poems and essays were just as popular as his fictional work. He worked with more than 200 periodicals, including Woman’s Home Companion and other prestigious magazines that published some of the best writings of Butler’s contemporaries including Max Rohmer, Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Despite this prolific writing career, Butler was never a full-time writer. He worked all his life as a banker and he also did volunteer work for his community. He was one of the founders of Authors League of America and of the Dutch Treat Club, a New York-based society of local performers, writers and illustrators. Many of Butler’s stories were adapted to the big screen and he always participated actively in the productions’ process.