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thumb Henry Blake Fuller (January 9, 1857 – July 28, 1929) was a United States novelist and short story writer, born in Chicago, Illinois. ==Career== Fuller's earliest works were travel romances set in Italy that featured allegorical characters. Both ''The Chevalier of Pensieri–Vani'' (1890) and ''The Châtelaine of La Trinité'' (1892) bear some thematic resemblance to the works of Henry James, whose primary interest was in the contrast between American and European ways of life. Fuller's first two books appealed to the genteel tastes of cultivated New Englanders such as Charles Eliot Norton and James Russell Lowell, who took Fuller's work as a promising sign of a burgeoning literary culture in what was then still largely the frontier city of Chicago. Fuller then turned to literary realism, writing ''The Cliff-Dwellers'' (1893), what is perhaps the first novel set among the skyscrapers and frenetic business culture of modern-day Chicago. The novel shocked and outraged Chicago readers, who found its unflattering portrait of the city jarring. The novel won the praise of the influential critic and novelist William Dean Howells, whose positive review did much to secure Fuller's position as an important regional realist. Novels like ''The Cliff-Dwellers'' and ''With the Procession'' (1895) were influenced by the social realism of Howells, who described American institutions being transformed by the economic and demographic changes of the late nineteenth century, although the scenes of violence in ''The Cliff-Dwellers'' feature elements of naturalism not to be found in Howells' novels. ''With the Procession'', though realistic, was kindlier in touch, with humor playing over its seriousness, unlike the relentless realism of ''The Cliff-Dwellers''.〔 Fuller's preference for Howells over James is the subject of one of Fuller's important unpublished essays entitled "Howells or James?" Fuller also wrote twelve one-act plays, collected in ''The Puppet Booth'' (1896). He wrote for various journals, including ''The Dial'', and he provided some editorial assistance to ''Poetry'' in its early years.〔 While he is considered one of the important novelists of Chicago's early years, his own relation to the city was often strained. The scion of one of Chicago's early settler families, he found the increasingly industrial and multicultural nature of the city offputting. His ambivalence is expressed in ''The Cliff-Dwellers'' and ''With the Procession'', both of which are set in Chicago. ''The Cliff-Dwellers'' is one of the first novels to treat at length social life in the new, skyscraper environment that was pioneered in Chicago. Perhaps his finest achievement is the controversial ''Bertram Cope's Year'' (1919), a subtle novel about homosexuals. Fuller self-published the novel in Chicago after unsuccessfully making the rounds of several New York publishing houses. Set on the campus of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, it featured an attractive young English instructor who becomes the elusive object of desire for several young women and at least two men of different ages. Cope's primary emotional attachment is to his effeminate college chum Arthur Lemoyne, who comes to Evanston to live with Cope until Lemoyne is expelled from the campus for making a backstage pass at another male student while dressed as a woman. The novel ends on an ambiguous note concerning the issue of Cope's sexuality. It received less than enthusiastic reviews from critics who did not understand the book's satirical intentions. It puzzled critics and embarrassed his friends. Upon its republication in 1998, it received enthusiastic reviews.〔''New York Times'': (Joel Cannaroe, "Seen Types of Ambiguity," August 9, 1998 ), accessed September 3, 2011〕 In 1898, Fuller was also one of the founding members of the Eagle's Nest Art Colony in Illinois. He wrote a column of art criticism for the ''New York Evening Post''.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Henry Blake Fuller」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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