Literature and Life (Complete)

The contents of Literature and Life by William Dean Howells list pieces titled The Man of Letters as a Man of Business, Confessions of a Summer Colonist and The Editor's Relations with the Young Contributor. Further pieces are titled Last Days in a Dutch Hotel, Some Anomalies of the Short Story, Spanish Prisoners of War and American Literary Centres.

The writer says that the most important question of all with the man of letters as a man of business is what kind of book will sell the best of itself, because a book sells itself or does not sell at all. The writer says each new start in life should be made with material new to you, if comfort is to attend the enterprise. The writer doubts very much whether the literary elect have been fascinated in great numbers by the fiction in question. The author calls it the habit of hasty casuists to regard civilization as inclusive of all the members of a civilized community, and a palpable error.