num_pages: 432
description: Today universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church - a saver of souls who lives a life of hypocrisy, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence - is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no record of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since Voltaire.
language: English
title: Elmer Gantry
titlecomplete: Elmer Gantry (Signet Classics)
genres: Fiction, Religion, American, Literature, Banned Books, Classics, Novels, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 5768
places: Missouri
awards: awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Audie Award
category: Literary Fiction
publisher: Signet Classics