Sinclair Lewis Remembered

42. Alfred Harcourt

42 / Alfred Harcourt Because he had a background in marketing books, Lewis was a welcome presence in the Harcourt, Brace offi ces in the early 1920s. Source: Alfred Harcourt, Some Experiences (Riverside, CT: privately printed, 1934), 58–59.­ Sinclair Lewis was one of the familiar fig­ ures around the offi ce in those days. Everyone liked him, and he was interested in everything we did. His work at Stokes’s and Doran’s had made him familiar with publishing problems, and he thought of himself as one of us. He and I had a chuckle one day when I abruptly left him—by then the famous author of Main Street—standing at my desk while I went to talk to a Chicago buyer who might give us an advance order for 5,000 copies of Babbitt. That book was written more around a central character than around a scene. Almost at once, Lewis fixed on the name of Babbitt for his hero, and found himself fascinated by him. There was some question about the title. Lewis suggested: Population, 300,000; Good Business; Sound Business; A Good Practical Man; A He-­ Man; The Booster; A Solid Citizen; Zenith. He always preferred “Babbitt,” for he said: “One remembers Ethan Frome, Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit, Madame Bovary, Clayhanger, Hilda Lessways, Jane Eyre,39 and many other name-­ titles really better than one remembers apparently more striking titles, and it so causes the pub­ lic to remember the name of the central character that he is more likely to be discussed.”40 We agreed with him that “Babbitt” was the best title, but we pointed out that as the book was probably going to stir up the same sort of controversy as Main Street, there might be a good many George Babbitts around the country who would dislike being identified with the book. So Lewis added the middle name of “Follansbee.” Before the book was published, we had a letter from a George F. Babbitt, complaining of the ridicule leveled at him,41 and another after publication from a man whose name was Babbitt, but the “Follansbee” protected Lewis. Babbitt was much more popu­ lar in England than Main Street, and really introduced the Ameri­ can scene and speech to the Britishers. The British edition had an introduction by Hugh Walpole42 and included a three-­ page glossary listing and explaining typically Ameri­ can phrases. ...