London Films

William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was an author, editor, and critic. Howells worked as a typesetter and a printer's apprentice, educating himself through intensive reading and the study of Spanish, French, Latin, and German.  Although he wrote over a hundred books in various genres, including novels, poems, plays, memoirs, and travel narratives, Howells is best known today for his realistic fiction.  In addition to his own creative works, Howells also wrote criticism, and essays about contemporary literary figures such as Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Benito Pérez Galdós, and, especially, Leo Tolstoy, which helped establish their reputations in the United States. 

«London Films» a work of Howells which shows how London Films used its photographic metaphor to question positivistic observational assumptions. This was a response to William James's Essays in Radical Empiricism (1912), and, finally, why Howells ultimately went back on his attempt to create a Kodak school in fiction. Author from New York spends several months on tour of London and surrounding area in 1900. If you are from London, interested in the history of London, or live in London, you will adore this book!