SOURCE: Crisler, Jesse S. “Howells and Norris: A Backward Glance Taken.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 52, no. 2 (September 1997): 232-51.

In the following essay, Crisler discusses the literary relationship between Norris and American novelist William Dean Howells.

The early assessment by Herbert Edwards of the relationship between William Dean Howells and Frank Norris remains typical of subsequent critical treatment of it in both intention and accuracy:

Howells was among the first who found a ‘new thrill’ in McTeague, and was probably the first to say so in print. Howells was largely instrumental in bringing Norris into public notice, although he had never had an opportunity of meeting him personally. It was Howells's favorable notice of Norris which had brought the young author to the attention of McClure … and which thus paved the way for Norris's later fame. When Norris died suddenly in 1902, Howells wrote the first essay of appreciation which appeared after...