Biography of Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis was once a well known author born back on February 7, 1885 and he lived until January 10, 1951. Besides being an novelist, he also liked to write short stories, and playwright. Sinclair Lewis also marked history for being the very first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature back in 1930.

Sinclair was born in Minnesota, at the village of Sauk Centre. There were two other siblings besides him named Fred born in the year of 1875, and then Claude, in 1878. Sinclair's dad was Edwin J. Lewis, and he was a physician. Edwin was a no-nonsense very strict father with the boys. From what I have read, Sinclair and his dad did not hit it off at all since Sinclair lacked athletic skills. Sinclair's mother who was Emma Kermott Lewis, passed away when Sinclair was just six years old.

Sinclair left home when he was 27, which was the year 1902 to enroll at the Oberlin Academy in Ohio for one year. This was the first step which he had to take in order to enroll at Yale University. He was ready for Yale by the next year in 1903, but it took him some extra time to receive a bachelors degree, which When the next year of 1892 arrived, Edwin became re-married to Isabel Warner. Apparently, Sinclair became close to his step mom. Sinclair was basically a very shy and lonely type of boy. On top of not being athletic, he was homely, had a terrible complexion, and was quite thin.

While Sinclair was a student in Yale, he became editor of the Yale Literary Magazine. He did some poetry and short sketches also for the Yale Courant. When he graduated from Yale finally, he floundered trying to find the right job, which often didn't work out, and just trying to get along and survive. He worked for several newspapers and publishing houses, and turned out stories that he sold. Jack London, another author, bought some of Lewis's works at the time.

In 1912, Sinclair had his first book published which was "Our Mr. Wren: The Adventures of a Gentle Man. This book came out in 1914. After that a year later, came another book, "The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life."

During the year of 1914, Sinclair became married to Grace Livingston Hegger, who worked for the Vogue magazine as an editor. The couple had a son Wells Lewis born in 1917 and died in 1944. Wells was killed while he served during World War II in the military.

Sinclair's marriage turned sour, and by 1925, he divorced Grace, and three years later remarried Dorothy Thompson. Lewis had a bad problem with alcohol and as a result, he died at the age of 65 due to medical problems.