![]() ![]() He also became through this single book the spokesman for a literary generation, and the year 1920 is in this sense historic. Its residents raged in indignation, but in less than two years Lewis was welcomed back as the town’s chief ornament. Sherwood carrying “old home town” sentiments very far from those of the novel from which the song took its title, appeared almost at once and the name of Lewis’ old home town itself, Sauk Centre, became archetypal in jokes about small towns told across the country. “Main Street, A Fox Trot Song,” with lyrics by Vincent M. The printers could not keep up with the orders, and for a while the publishers had to ration out copies to book-sellers. Main Street was the most sensational event in twentieth-century American publishing history, from the point of view both of sales and of public response. In the first six months of 1921 it sold 180,000. He thought that it was great he thought that it would probably sell as many as 20,000 copies before it stopped, and his sales manager believed that they could probably expect a sale of 25,000. On July 17, 1920, Sinclair Lewis delivered the finished manuscript of Main Street to Alfred Harcourt in the hope that it would sell 10,000 copies. ![]()
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