Newly married to local doctor Will Kennicott, free-spirited Carol Milford sets out to reform and improve her new hometown of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, beautify its streets and educate its citizens. Published in 1920, Main Street was a major bestseller, reflecting the public's interest in wholesome small-town life. At the same time, however, Sinclair Lewis derided small-town attitudes throughout the book with his trademark satiric humour. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis wrote stories heavily influenced by America's urbanization, industrialization and loss of frontier in the post-war period.
