What A Hazard Of New Fortunes Actually Is
A Hazard Of New Fortunes is a novel by William Dean Howells, published in 1890. It is set in Chicago and follows the lives of several residents as they navigate the rapidly changing social and economic landscape of the post-Civil War era. The book is considered one of the important works of American literary realism. The central character is Bellamy Barren, a newspaper editor who returns to Chicago after years in Europe. He gets drawn into labor disputes, class conflicts, and moral dilemmas that reflect the real tensions of Gilded Age America. Howells wrote it during a period when he was pushing hard for fiction to depict everyday life without romantic filtering.
Why A Hazard Of New Fortunes Still Matters
The novel is not widely taught today the way some other realist works are, but it offers a fairly accurate portrait of Chicago around 1888. Howells spent time in the city and used it as the model for his fictional neighborhood of Brewster. The industrial boom, the rise of department stores, the labor strikes — all of this appears in the text without much cushioning. I first read this back in college and honestly found the middle section quite slow. The plot drags in places. What makes it worth reading now is Howells's refusal to simplify his characters into heroes and villains. Even the people who behave badly get moments where their reasoning is comprehensible. That approach was unusual for the time and still feels fresh.
How To Read It Productively
Start with Chapter 1 and push through to Chapter 8 without skipping. Some readers drop off around the middle because the narrative stretches across many characters and subplots. The payoff comes later when those threads begin connecting. Keep a small list of character names in front of you. Howells introduces a lot of people in the early chapters and they do not all get equal development. Characters like Bellamy, Lillie, and Ben Haley carry the main emotional weight. Others appear more as representatives of a social type. That is deliberate on Howells's part, not careless writing. One thing most first-time readers miss: the newspaper industry subplot is not filler. Barren's role as an editor is how Howells explores the tension between truth-telling and commercial pressure. In practice, reading that thread closely gives you the book's actual thesis about modern life. Ignore it and you get a story about people being awkward with each other.
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The Core Themes, Plainly
Class and social mobility — The novel examines who gets to move up and who gets left behind. Barren returns from Europe with a certain confidence that the world has not prepared him for. Chicago does not care about his manners. Labor and capital — There is a strike storyline that runs through the middle of the book. Howells does not take a simplistic pro-or-anti position. He shows the complications on both sides, including the people who get crushed regardless of who wins. Urban isolation — Despite being surrounded by people, many characters feel disconnected. This is not dramatized. It is just observed, which is what makes it land harder.
Common Problems People Hit Reading A Hazard Of New Fortunes
The biggest issue is pacing. The middle section slows down significantly. I ran into this myself when I tried pushing through quickly. What worked for me was slowing to a stop around Chapter 12 and re-reading a few pages I had skimmed. The connections between characters become clearer once you pay attention to the minor figures rather than treating them as background noise. Another pitfall is assuming the ending resolves the main conflicts. It does not. Howells leaves things open-ended on purpose. The resolution is meant to feel incomplete because the social problems he describes were incomplete at the time and remain so.
Where To Get It
The book is in the public domain in the United States. You can find free electronic versions through Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, and Internet Archive. The Project Gutenberg edition (number 84) is clean and properly formatted. Standard Ebooks adds a nicer cover and more careful typography if you want something that reads better on a device. Paperback editions exist from various publishers. Dover Thrift and Cosimo Classics are two that come up regularly. They tend to be cheap but the paper quality is thin. If you plan to annotate it, buy a hardcover or use an e-reader.
What This Book Gets Wrong Or Leaves Out
For all its realism, the novel has blind spots. Howells was writing from a fairly narrow perspective. The working-class characters are mostly observed from the outside. Their inner lives are not given the same depth as the middle-class characters. This was somewhat typical of the era but it still limits the book's scope. The Chicago of the novel is also predominantly white and middle-class in focus. The Great Migration was beginning and the city was becoming far more diverse, but that change is largely absent from the text. If you are looking for a fuller picture of 1888 Chicago, pair this with nonfiction accounts from that period. Some passages of dialogue feel stiff by modern standards. Howells was trying to capture the way people actually spoke, but his ear was limited by the conventions of his time. You get used to it after the first fifty pages.
Who Should Read It
People interested in American realism, Gilded Age history, or Chicago literature will find this useful. It is not a fast read. It will not keep you up all night. But if you want a detailed look at how one writer attempted to document a city in transition, it holds up reasonably well. Just go in expecting observation rather than plot-driven excitement.
