This first volume in a two-volume biography of William Dean Howells is the story of a series of intermingling lines of growth: the growth of admirable personality, the growth of a great career in letters, the growth of a penetrating mind, of a major command of literary art, of an influence of predominant importance to an age and to its legacy to the present. Because the importance of Howells' life lies in his novels, close attention is paid to his principal writings.