Silas Lapham, a Vermont farm boy who made a fortune in mineral paint, is building a grand house in Boston’s Back Bay when young Tom Corey, son of an old Brahmin family, takes a job in his business. The Laphams assume Tom is courting the pretty Irene, misunderstandings follow, and a business crisis tests Silas’s honesty.
Howells’s best-known novel, from 1885, a landmark of American realism still sharp on money, manners and conscience. Download the free EPUB.