14 h 22 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 14 h 22 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the house, the car, and the good name belong to a life you never chose?
George F. Babbitt sells houses and land in Zenith, a booming Midwestern city that loves to boast. He has a comfortable home, a busy social life, and a reputation to protect. Yet beneath the sales talk and club chatter, he feels a hunger for something freer. Sinclair Lewis turns this respectable businessman’s daily routine into a sharp comedy about the cost of fitting in.
At home, Myra Babbitt tends to George’s comfort while their children question the choices he expects them to make. His oldest friend, Paul Riesling, longs to escape an unhappy marriage. Around them, business values shape religion, politics, and friendship. Babbitt wants approval, but his growing restlessness puts that desire under strain: how much room does Zenith leave for a mind of one’s own?
What you’ll discover
- A city built to boast Step beneath Zenith’s towers, where civic pride and business ambition fill the conversation.
- The comedy of respectability Hear the gap between Babbitt’s confident words and the doubts his daily life reveals.
- Comfort with cracks beneath Meet a family whose comfortable home cannot keep different hopes from pulling them apart.
- The pressure to agree See how clubs, friends, and shared habits make conformity feel like personal choice.
- A hunger for freedom Follow Babbitt’s uneasy longing for something beyond property, approval, and a good name.
Who will love it
Readers who love sharp social comedy, vivid portraits of ordinary people, and men seeking more than success will enjoy this novel. It also suits those curious about 1920s America.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Success leaves Babbitt wanting something else
- Status takes the place of closeness
- Business slogans make dishonesty feel respectable
- Paul makes honesty feel possible
- Escape leaves his restlessness untouched
- Public praise cannot quiet private longing
- Loss breaks through his confident performance
- Romance becomes another kind of conformity
- Zenith presses its people into line
Who’s who
- George F. BabbittA forty-six-year-old real estate broker in Zenith who wants respect, comfort and some unnamed freedom he glimpses in dreams.
- Myra BabbittHis patient, plump wife of twenty-three years who keeps the house running and wants to be noticed by her husband.
- Paul RieslingBabbitt's closest friend, a gentle roofing salesman who wishes he had been a violinist and is trapped in a bitter marriage.
- Zilla RieslingPaul's sharp-tongued wife, who nags and makes scenes and believes life is a plot against her.
- Ted BabbittBabbitt's seventeen-year-old son, a born mechanic who loves cars and Eunice Littlefield more than books.
- Verona BabbittHis college-educated daughter, who wants work that matters and talks about ideas with the reporter Kenneth Escott.
- Vergil GunchA jovial coal dealer and leader of the Boosters who enforces what the clan believes.
- Tanis JudiqueA fashionable widow who listens to Babbitt with flattering attention and leads him into a lively circle called the Bunch.
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Babbitt
by Sinclair Lewis · 1922
Zenith salesman George F. Babbitt has the car, the club and the house, yet a fairy child haunts his dreams every night.
Medium level5–10 hours to read20 languages
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“It is not recorded that he managed to answer.”
In short
What does a man want when he already owns everything he was told to want? George F. Babbitt wakes each morning in a tidy house in Floral Heights, a suburb of the busy city of Zenith.
Babbitt at a glance
- Reading time
- About 8 h 25 min6 h 40 min fast, 10 h slow
- Length
- 119,800 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1922by Sinclair Lewis
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Perfect Morning That Leaves Him Restless
The novel opens on the towers of Zenith rising out of the morning mist, then drops onto a sleeping porch in Floral Heights. There lies George F. Babbitt, forty-six years old, in April 1920. He sells houses for more than people can afford, and he makes nothing else, neither butter nor shoes nor poetry.
In his sleep he dreams of the fairy child, a slim girl who sees a gallant young man where everyone else sees plain Georgie. The milk truck and a cranking Ford break the dream into pieces. The alarm clock rings at seven-twenty. It is the best advertised model, with a cathedral chime, and Babbitt is proud of it as a sign of rank.
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Details
- First published
- 1922
- Language
- English
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/babbitt.
Lewis, S. (2026). Babbitt. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/babbitt (Original work published 1922)
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/babbitt.
@book{lewis2026babbitt,
author = {Lewis, Sinclair},
title = {Babbitt},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/babbitt},
note = {First published 1922}
}
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What is Babbitt about?
It follows George F. Babbitt, a middle-aged real estate broker in the fictional city of Zenith. He has money, status and a family, yet he feels empty and tries to break away from his routine.
Why is the book called Babbitt?
The title is the hero's last name. The word later came to describe a self-satisfied businessman who follows the crowd and prizes money and conformity over thought.
Is Babbitt based on a true story?
No, it is a novel. Zenith and its people are invented, but Sinclair Lewis drew them from the American business culture he observed. It was published in 1922 and begins in 1920.
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.
“It is not recorded that he managed to answer.”
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