November - Socioeconomic Disparity

Article: 5 American Authors of Wealth, Poverty, and Inequality


It is a truism that novelists reflect the concerns of their times. In this article, we highlight the novels of five American authors who lived and wrote during a period of immense social inequalities and upheaval—the late Victorian period in Great Britain, and the Gilded Age in America.

The five novelists we have chosen to highlight are: Henry James (1843–1916), William Dean Howells (1837–1920), Frank Norris (1870–1902), Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945), and Edith Wharton (1862–1937). Within a comparatively brief span of two decades (1885 to 1905), these authors produced five novels from which it is possible to take in a sweeping view of the massive transformations that were taking place in societies on both sides of the Atlantic through economic development, the concentration of wealth and power, and intense class conflict.