Sinclair Lewis's Cautionary Tale It Can't Happen Here (1935).

Abstract

Today Sinclair Lewis's novel It Can't Happen Here (1935) is widely known only by its title, which is often quoted without any attribution to (the ironic intention of) the author, the first American winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1930. In literary studies ICHH is usually considered in the tradition of the dystopian novel (e.g., Jack London's The Iron Heel. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's 1984), but because Lewis grounded his satirical‐realistic novel in an intricate wealth of historical and contemporary detail, ICHH has over time been ignored or dismissed as a literary‘period piece’too demanding for today's reading public. However, in light of the 20th century struggle between democracy and totalitarianism, and particularly in view of the current resurgence of right‐wing extremism world‐wide, a re‐examination of Lewis's political cautionary tale in historical context, based on archival work in the Sinclair Lewis Papers (Yale) and the Dorothy Thompson Papers (Syracuse) as well as on extensive research into the contemporary literature and subsequent scholarship, should also demonstrate its continuing relevance.