It Can't Happen Here
  • Published: 20 January 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241310663
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $22.99

It Can't Happen Here

Formats & editions
Paperback
20 Jan 2017
EBook
20 Jan 2017
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Find local retailers Find local retailers Abbeys Angus & Robertson Boomerang Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Your Bookstore

New to Penguin Classics, Lewis's 1935 bestseller about a demagogue who becomes president of the United States is 'frighteningly contemporary'

It's 1935 and discontent is rife in America. From the political margins appears Buzz Windrip, charismatic presidential candidate and 'inspired guesser at what political doctrines the people would like'. Sweeping to power amid mass elation, he promises wealth for all and the dawn of a glorious new era. Small-town newspaper editor Doremus Jessup is worried, especially when the new regime becomes increasingly authoritarian. But what can one individual do to fight an all-powerful state? Sinclair Lewis's terrifying cautionary tale pits liberal complacency against popular fascism and shows: yes, it really can happen here.
  • Published: 20 January 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241310663
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis was an American playwright and novelist. Born in 1885, he received his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1908 and published his first novel, Hike and the Aeroplane, in 1912. He published Babbitt, perhaps his most fanous work, in 1922 and in 1926 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel Arrowsmith but rejected it. In 1930 he was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in Rome, in 1951, and his last novel World So Wide was published posthumously.

Also by Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt
Mod Lib Kingsblood Royal
Main Street
See all

Praise for It Can't Happen Here

Not only Lewis's most important book but one of the most important books ever produced in the United States

New Yorker

You can't read Lewis' novel today without flashes of Trumpian recognition

Slate

Eighty years later the novel feels frighteningly contemporary

Salon

An eerily prescient foreshadowing of current affairs

Guardian