William Dean Howells (March 1, 1837 – May 11, 1920) was an American novelist, literary critic, and playwright. He also wrote articles for Harper's Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly and became editor for the latter. A realist writer who disliked syrupy, sentimental novels, and a Christian socialist (although not a Marxist), his list of friends is a "who's who" of nineteenth century American authors and intellectuals, including Henry Adams, William James, Henry James, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
He is best known for his story about Christmas "Christmas Every Day" and for two novels: The Rise of Silas Lapham (a Rags to Riches story about an entrepreneur) and A Traveler from Altruria (a foundational work of Pastoral Science Fiction).
A Traveler from Altruria is a utopian novel published in 1892-1893 in installment form and in book form in 1894. The novel is a critique of capitalism and its consequences, based on Howells' views of the negative impacts of industrial expansion in the late nineteenth century. Set in the 1890s in a East coast summer resort, it is narrated by a fiction author who is hosting a visitor from the island of Altruria. The narrator realizes that the money-focused United States is doing more poorly than Altruria in every respect.
