The Cliff-Dwellers (Illustrated Edition)

📒 Fuller (1857-1929) was an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Chicago, where he also worked, he is the earliest novelist from the city to gain a national reputation. His exploration of city life was seen as revelatory and later in life he broke new ground by exploring homosexuality in fiction. His early novels bore the influence of Henry James, contrasting the American and European way of life, but with The Cliff-Dwellers (1893) he turned to literary realism. Perhaps the first novel to be set amidst the skyscrapers and frenetic business culture of modern-day Chicago, the novel shocked and outraged Chicago readers who found its unflattering portrait of the city jarring. However, it won praise from the influential critic and novelist William Dean Howells whose positive review did much to secure Fuller's position as an important regional realist. Reprinted from an edition of 1898 which includes 24 illustrations by T de Thulstrup.