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A Hazard of New Fortunes
William Dean Howells
Book Overview:
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, a businessman from Boston of a literary bent, moves with his family to New York to edit a new journal founded by an acquaintance. Its financial support, however, comes from a Mr. Dryfoos, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer suddenly become millionaire by the discovery of natural gas on his property, and now living in New York with his family in a style he hopes will befit his new wealth.
Is it his new fortune that presents a hazard? Or is it the new wealth of New York City in the Gilded Age? Both March and his literary creator are increasingly aware of some of the social and economic contradictions that beset the city of the time (though some of Howell’s analysis sounds as if it well might fit New York today). Characters such as, among others, Dryfoos’s children, a German socialist immigrant who fought for the Union cause, an impoverished Southern colonel still persuaded that a reformed slavery might work, a young woman drawn from the upper reaches of Old New York society, help to enrich the story and its setting with their differing viewpoints.
Howell’s novel is set in New York of the late nineteenth century, a city familiar to readers of Edith Wharton and Henry James. Basil March, a businessman from Boston of a literary bent, moves with his family to New York to edit a new journal founded by an acquaintance. Its financial support, however, comes from a Mr. Dryfoos, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer suddenly become millionaire by the discovery of natural gas on his property, and now living in New York with his family in a style he hopes will befit his new wealth.
Is it his new fortune that presents a hazard? Or is it the new wealth of New York City in the Gilded Age? Both March and his literary creator are increasingly aware of some of the social and economic contradictions that beset the city of the time (though some of Howell’s analysis sounds as if it well might fit New York today). Characters such as, among others, Dryfoos’s children, a German socialist immigrant who fought for the Union cause, an impoverished Southern colonel still persuaded that a reformed slavery might work, a young woman drawn from the upper reaches of Old New York society, help to enrich the story and its setting with their differing viewpoints.
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His work was more in his thoughts than himself, however; and as the time for the publication of the first number of his periodical came nearer, his cares all centred upon it. Without fixing any date, Fulkerson had announced it, and pushed his announcements with the shameless vigor of a born advertiser. He worked his interest with the press to the utmost, and paragraphs of a variety that did credit to his ingenuity were afloat everywhere. Some of them were speciously unfavorable in tone; they criticised and even ridiculed the principles on which the new departure in literary journalism was based. Others defended it; others yet denied that this rumored principle was really the principle. All contributed to make talk. All proceeded from the same fertile invention.
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Community Reviews
Overall this is an excellent novel. The gradual expansion of the narrative to follow more and more characters allows the complexity of the story to grow alongside the number and diversity of ideas presented and considered, generally very effectively (though the pacing of perspective switches was one
When I first began A Hazard of New Fortunes, I got the sinking feeling that it would not have much to offer my tastes. Realism has never appealed much to me, and a novel so wholly devoted to exploring the types of a bygone urban society might prove only of historical interest. The Marches are not th
Several Sideshows Jell Into A Novel
A usual book review outlines something of the plot, not enough to give everything away, but at least something to catch a potential reader's fancy. I cannot assure you that this book has much of plot---some men come together to run a new bi-weekly magazine in New Y
Classic example of why integrating politics into art is such a tough balancing act... ironic how an exemplary "realist" novel is basically propaganda for a political ideology.
It is not Howells's work that has aged poorly. No,the reading habits and tastes of educated Americans have died a slow and painful death. Imagine if the lovers of classical music lost their hearing, so that highbrow opinion became middlebrow opinion, only for middlebrow opinion to mingle with and be
actual rating: 2.5 stars
not my cup of tea
Howells--or rather his books--haven't aged well. Despite attempts to show a panorama of New York life, his perspective is blinkered by middle class, middle range male values and experiences. And his writing is so fussy and over detailed I put this short book down feeling suffocated, headachey and de
Another classic for my American lit class that did not sit well with me. The first 100-150 pages centers on a couple's apartment shopping in New York. The rest of the book perhaps delves into social commentary on capitalism and class structure and commercialism, but the sheer inundation of unnecessa