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Harry Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) was the first writer from the United States to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1930. His novels, strongly critical of American society and capitalism include Babbitt, Main Street, Elmer Gantry, and Arrowsmith. His portrait appeared on a 14-cent U.S. Postal Service postage stamp in 1985, honored as a Great American.

In this paean to the democratizing effects of the automobile, published in 1919, Brooklyn railroad heiress Claire Boltwood motors from Minnesota to a vacation with cousins in Seattle. After down-to-earth auto mechanic Milt Daggett rescues her vehicle from a mud hole, she gradually begins to change her snobbish ways.

Publishers Weekly

Travel from Minnesota to Seattle brings an upper-class family down to earth in this early effort from Lewis. (June)