It Can't Happen Here

Description

New to Penguin Classics, Lewis's 1935 bestseller about a demagogue who becomes president of the United States is 'frighteningly contemporary' It's 1935 and discontent is rife in America. From the political margins appears Buzz Windrip, charismatic presidential candidate and 'inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like'. Sweeping to power amid mass elation, he promises wealth for all and the dawn of a glorious new era. Small-town newspaper editor Doremus Jessup is worried, especially when the new regime becomes increasingly authoritarian. But what can one individual do to fight an all-powerful state? Sinclair Lewis's terrifying cautionary tale pits liberal complacency against popular fascism and shows- yes, it really can happen here.

Sinclair Lewis was born in 1885 in Minnesota. He attended Yale University and subsequently worked as a reporter and editor. In 1920, he had a major breakthrough with Main Street (1920), which was followed by Babbitt (1922) and many other successful novels. He won the Nobel Prize in 1930 and in 1935 wrote the bestselling It Can't Happen Here, a cautionary tale about the rise of a fascist president in America. He died in Rome in 1951.

You can't read Lewis' novel today without flashes of Trumpian recognition * Slate * An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs * Guardian * Eighty years later the novel feels frighteningly contemporary * Salon * Not only Lewis's most important book but one of the most important books ever produced in the United States * New Yorker *