Elmer Gantry

A landmark in American literature, Lewiss portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist--who lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and self-indulgence--is also the chronicle of a reign of vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no record of itself. Features a new Introduction. Revised reissue. Sinclair Lewis' world-famous satire of religious hypocrisy and the excesses of the Roaring ʼ20s. Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be invited to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church--a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence--is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire.

With an introduction by Jason Stevens