The inocents by Sinclair Lewis was one of two novels published in 1917. The full title of this work is The innocents: a story for lovers and it was originally a collection of serialized stories for a women’s magazine. It was Sinclair Lewis’s last signature pulp novel.
The innocents, summary of the plot:
The first characters featured are a couple, born a decade before the American Civil War, who now lived in New York City and were married for 40 years. They are Mr. Seth Appleby and Mrs. Sarah Jane Appleby, often called simply “Father” and “Mother”.
They have a married daughter, Lulu, who lives with her husband and young son in New York City. Mother and father are “the innocents” from Sinclair Lewis’ serialized novella from 1917.
After a few decades at Pilkings & Son’s Shoe Parlor, Seth Appleby has worked his way up to becoming for Pilkings a more or less modern equivalent of what Dagwood Bumstead is for Julius Dithers, though still less appreciated and less challenged than Dagwood. This is a theme that also appeared on “Our Mr. Wrenn”.
During their annual two-week Cape Cod vacation, the father and mother treat their vacation home owners for a snack at the Ye Tea Shoppe. Expecting the bill for his light snack to be around ninety cents, the father is surprised that he is charged $ 3.60. Calculate that sum to represent a 500% markup on the food served.
Suddenly, in a moment like a big eye-opening eye-opening moment, the idea of running a tea shop seems like an attractive alternative to outfitting big cities with footwear.
They sell everything they have and open their own tea shop on Cape Cod. It fails. Seth can’t get his old job back. They end up having to wander from New York to West Virginia, where they transform the manners and morale of a homeless jungle. The tramps disperse and begin the legend of two rich old eccentrics who roam the world doing good. Ultimately, the Applebys find happiness again in the shoe business in the small town of Indiana.
If this sounds a bit silly, Lewis probably wouldn’t argue. He had an amazing ability to earn a living as a writer because he knew how to quickly provide “fluffy” stories that the general public would consume.
Sinclair Lewis often had a hard time describing married couples who were equal to one another or at least contributed nearly the same as partners in their “divisions of work.” The Innocents is a very notable exception to this, as for whatever flaws in the plot, this novel is one of its best examples of a couple as equals.
Whether you call it traveling, flying, wanderlust, dreaming … call it “greener grass syndrome”, but one of the most persistent themes in both Sinclair Lewis’ personal life and work is that movement. pure, try something completely new. And differently, simply going the long way, some or all of these, will almost certainly bring good results, something better.
Now a rare collector’s book, a good copy without a dust jacket can easily sell for around $ 800.
