4 h 53 minAudiobook10 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 53 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a quiet life still holds room for a new beginning?
In The Innocents, Sinclair Lewis follows an elderly married couple whose days settle into routine. They live quietly, with little money, and their world feels increasingly small. Yet their wish for something more remains. Pressed by their circumstances, they begin to look beyond the life they know.
This short novel turns toward the courage of ordinary people rather than grand heroes. Lewis finds feeling in the couple’s loyalty, patience and shared jokes. His clear prose and light humour bring their modest lives close, asking what it takes to seek change when familiar routines seem to leave little room for it.
What you’ll discover
- Two lives worth knowing Meet a plain, decent couple whose modest hopes give this quiet story its heart.
- Love in small acts Find tenderness in patience, loyalty and the shared jokes that hold a marriage together.
- The wish for more Explore how the desire for change persists even when life has settled into routine.
- A gentler Sinclair Lewis Discover warmth and light humour rather than the biting satire of his later novels.
- Everyday details that matter Enjoy clear, direct prose that draws your attention to ordinary lives and their quiet feelings.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy warm, funny stories about marriage, if you like underdogs with big plans, or if you are drawn to a story that cheers for people who refuse to grow old quietly.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A tea room bill sparks a dream
- The T Room opens to empty roads
- Hope fades after the grand visitor
- A rooftop escape from kindness
- New York turns away its old clerk
- Age, kindness and the comic voice
Who’s who
- Seth ApplebyA cheerful, boastful shoe clerk past sixty who plays the harmonica, loves his wife, and dreams up a new plan every time one fails.
- Sarah ApplebySeth's wife, called Mother, who scolds him constantly, adores him, and finds hidden courage when the family needs her.
- Lulu HartwigThe Applebys' daughter, a polished and bossy woman who wants to improve her parents and show them off to her neighbors.
- Harris HartwigLulu's husband, a heavy druggist from Saserkopee who thinks his jokes are wit and his advice is law.
- Miss MitchinA brisk, artistic rival who runs a crowded tea room and gift shop in Grimsby Center and draws the summer crowd.
- Mrs. Vance CarterA rich Boston widow whose single visit to the tea room decides the Applebys' hopes for the season.
- Crook McKusickA thin, hook-nosed hobo boss who runs a camp in the woods and gives Seth lessons in bluffing and training.
- Uncle Joe TubbsA grumpy, loyal Cape Cod farmer who welcomes the Applebys each summer and loves cribbage.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 4 h 53 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 10 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Read and hear Die Unschuldigen in 25 languages and switch at any time. Or read two side by side, paragraph by paragraph: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Die Unschuldigen
by Sinclair Lewis · 1917
An aging shoe clerk and his wife stake their savings on a Cape Cod tea room, armed with a harmonica and a dream.
Medium level2–5 hours to read25 languages
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In short
The Innocents is a short novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1917. Lewis is better known for sharp books about American towns, but this one is warm.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A tea room bill sparks a dream
Seth and Sarah Appleby live in a dark brown New York apartment with a tabby cat, a canary and a china hen that holds their breakfast eggs. Seth works at Pilkings and Son, a shoe store on Sixth Avenue, where old Mr. Pilkings still calls him Hey, you, Seth. Every July Seth fakes a small cough to win two weeks of leave, and Sarah worries all the while that the plan will fail.
The trip begins on a night steamer to Massachusetts. Seth wears a showy new cap and plays the brave traveler for Sarah's sake. Then, when she sleeps, he slips out on deck and shakes with fear of the dark water. By the time a lighthouse winks at him he is happy again. Seth has hidden peppermints in Sarah's boots and Sarah has hidden a new harmonica in his nightshirt, and each finds the other's surprise.
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What is The Innocents by Sinclair Lewis about?
It tells of Seth and Sarah Appleby, an elderly New York couple. They leave shoe-store life to run a tea room on Cape Cod, then face failure, a bossy daughter and the open road, supporting each other throughout.
Why is the book called The Innocents?
The Applebys are simple, trusting and kind. Lewis uses the word for their childlike love, their faith in ideas like the tea room and their way of walking into trouble without malice.
Is The Innocents a true story?
No, it is fiction. Lewis wrote it around 1917, and it carries references to the First World War years, including a scene set in 1915, but the Applebys are invented.
The author
Sinclair Lewis
1885–1951 · American novelist
Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist and the first writer from the United States to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Babbitt, his satire of small-city boosterism and middle-class conformity, added a new word to the American vocabulary.
More by Sinclair Lewis
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