Arrowsmith
First published 1924 · 462 pages · about 8 hours to read
Won: Pulitzer Prize for the Novel (1926)
Also as Kindle · AudiobookRead free on Project Gutenberg · Find in a library · Wikipedia
About this book
Originally published in 1925, after three years of anticipation, the book follows the life of Martin Arrowsmith, a rather ordinary fellow who gets his first taste of medicine at 14 as an assistant to the drunken physician in his home town.
It is Leora Tozer who makes Martin's life extraordinary. With vitality and love, she urges him beyond the confines of the mundane to risk answering his true calling as a scientist and researcher. Not even her tragic death can extinguish her spirit or her impact on Martin's life.
After years of work as a small town doctor and a research scientist, Arrowsmith heads for the West Indies with a serum to halt an epidemic. A tragic turn of events forces him to come to terms with his career and his personal life.
As the son and grandson of physicians, Sinclair Lewis had a store of experiences and imparted knowledge to draw upon for Arrowsmith.
Books like Arrowsmith
Quotes
“He rarely left his small brown weedy house except to return to his laboratory, and few students outside of his classes had ever identified him, but every one had heard of his tall, lean, dark aloofness. A thousand fables fluttered about him.”
Chapter II
More quotes
“Every night when Fatty retired he had to remove from his bed a collection of objects which thoughtful house-mates had stuffed between the sheets--soap, alarm clocks, fish. He was the perfect person to whom to sell useless things.”
Chapter V “Clif had been elected class president, for the year, because he was so full of greetings. He never met a classmate in the hall of Main Medical without shouting, “How’s your vermiform appendix functioning this morning?” or “I bid thee a lofty greeting, old pediculosis.””
Chapter II
Passages from the book's public-domain text on Project Gutenberg.
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