New Leaf Mills : a chronicle
William Dean Howells (Author)
A story reminiscent of the middle west of Howells's boyhood. The chronicle - he does not call his story a novel - is concerned with Owen Powell, a visionary dreamer who, after business failure in the city, takes his family to the backwoods thinking to found there a communistic community after the order of Robert Owen. He buys a run-down flour mill and tries to establish a paper mill; his schemes fail, but, undaunted, he fixes his eyes on a new vision and starts a new venture. New Leaf Mills: a Chronicle, like many of William Dean Howells' novels, has three distinct values. In the first place. It is a good story, vivid and interesting from beginning to end. In the second place, it is a penetrating psychological study, a faithful record of intellectual and spiritual activity. In the third place, it is an important historical document, setting down for the information of future generations the manners and thoughts of the provincial Americans who lived In the middle west In the days immediately after the Mexican war
Print Book, English, 1913
Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York, 1913