18 h 53 minAudiobook13 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does a doctor owe the truth when comfort, money and applause all point the other way?
Martin Arrowsmith wants to heal people and discover how disease works. Restless and stubborn, he leaves small-town Elk Mills to study medicine. His stern teacher, Max Gottlieb, demands exact proof, not easy answers. With Leora Tozer beside him, Martin tries to earn a living without losing the scientific habits that give his work its purpose.
In Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis turns a sharp, comic eye on medicine and ambition. Country practice tests Martin’s ideals, while public health brings noisy campaigns and a wealthy Chicago clinic offers comfort. Around him, polished doctors and eager promoters make success look simple. The question grows harder: can he build a career without giving up the slow work of finding things out?
What you’ll discover
- A restless young doctor Follow Martin as his wish to heal meets his stubborn hunger for scientific truth.
- Proof before popularity Meet Max Gottlieb, whose exacting standards make science a discipline rather than a route to applause.
- Love amid ambition Discover Leora’s plain-spoken steadiness, and the support Martin too often takes for granted.
- Medicine under the microscope Step into early twentieth-century medicine, where careful methods compete with slogans, money and reputation.
- Satire with a sting Enjoy Lewis’s ironic eye for people who mix kindness, ambition, foolishness and dishonesty.
Who will love it
For readers who love novels about work and ambition, enjoy satire, or are drawn to science and medicine.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A small-town boy sets his heart on medicine
- Gottlieb teaches that science is a discipline
- Leora enters, and Martin finds a partner
- Country practice tests his ideals in Wheatsylvania
- Public health in Nautilus brings noise instead of results
- A rich Chicago clinic offers comfort and a trap
- The McGurk Institute promises freedom and delivers politics
- What the book says about truth, money and loyalty
- Satire, science and a plain style carry the story
Who’s who
- Martin ArrowsmithA gifted, restless doctor from Winnemac who wants to find out how disease works, and who struggles to keep that aim through every job.
- Leora TozerA plain-spoken nurse who becomes Martin's wife, supports his work through every move, and gives him a steadiness he often takes for granted.
- Max GottliebA stern German-born bacteriologist who teaches Martin that science means exact proof, and who is proud, lonely and hard to please.
- Angus DuerMartin's polished classmate, who sees medicine as a path to success and rises easily through the profession.
- Almus PickerbaughA booming, well-meaning director of public health in Nautilus who loves slogans and campaigns more than careful method.
- Rippleton HolabirdThe smooth director of the McGurk Institute, who values the institute's reputation and public image above slow and careful research.
- Terry WickettA blunt, hardworking chemist at McGurk who despises show and believes in doing plain research without fuss.
Formats and delivery
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- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 18 h 53 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 13 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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Arrowsmith
by Sinclair Lewis · 1925
Martin Arrowsmith pursues honest science as money, fame and comfort tempt him to give up his calling.
Challenging10–20 hours to read25 languages
Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, 1926 (declined)
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In short
Arrowsmith is a novel by Sinclair Lewis, published in 1925. It follows Martin Arrowsmith, a boy from a small Midwestern town who wants to be a scientist and a healer.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A small-town boy sets his heart on medicine
Martin Arrowsmith grows up in Elk Mills, a modest town in the fictional state of Winnemac. His family is not rich, and he is a restless boy with a good mind and a stubborn streak. He hangs about the office of Doc Vickerson, the old town physician, and helps with small chores.
Vickerson is a kind man, but he is also worn out and set in his ways. He drinks, he reads little new, and he treats his patients by habit. Martin loves the smell of the office and the feeling of being useful. Lewis uses the old doctor to show what medicine looks like in a town with no laboratory and no one to check the doctor's work.
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What is Arrowsmith about?
Arrowsmith follows Martin Arrowsmith, a doctor from the Midwest, through medical school, country practice, public health and a research institute. It asks whether a man can keep to honest science when money, fame and comfort offer easier paths.
Who is Max Gottlieb in Arrowsmith?
Max Gottlieb is Martin's teacher, a German-born professor of bacteriology and immunology. He is exact, severe and lonely, and his demand for proof sets the standard by which Martin measures every later job and colleague.
Is Arrowsmith based on a true story?
No, Martin Arrowsmith is invented. Sinclair Lewis published the novel in 1925 and worked with microbiologist Paul de Kruif, who advised on the science and on the real life of research laboratories at the time.
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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