The Common Lot

by Robert Welch Herrick

Robert Welch Herrick (1868-1938) was a novelist who was part of a new generation of American realists. His novels deal with the turbulence of industrialized society and the turmoil it can create in sensitive, isolated people. He was also briefly acting-Governor of the United States Virgin Islands in 1935. From 1905 to 1923, he was a professor of literature at the University of Chicago, during which time he wrote thirteen novels. Among those considered to be his finest was Web of Life (1900). His art was free of dogmatic isms and achieves its power from a melancholic fatalism. He dreaded the brutality and ignorance of the mob as much as he despised the avarice and ennui of the upper class. He was suspicious of political doctrines and utopian legislation, feeling that true progress for human happiness must always lie in individuals making moral choices. His works Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories (1897), The Man Who Wins (1897), The Gopsel of Freedom (1898), The Real World (1901), Their Child (1903), Together (1908) and A Life for a Life (1910).

426 pages

First published January 1, 1904

About the author

Robert Welch Herrick was a novelist who was part of a new generation of American realists. His novels deal with the turbulence of industrialized society and the turmoil it can create in sensitive, isolated people. He was also briefly acting-Governor of the United States Virgin Islands in 1935

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Reviews

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powers Jackson is a self-made man who dies a multimillionaire with no children. He has provided his sister's son with a first-class college education/training as an architect, finished off with three years of study in Europe. When the nephew returns to the States, his uncle obtains a position for him in a Chicago architectural firm. Uncle subsequently dies and only leaves $10,000 in securities to this favored nephew, to the surprise of everyone. The bulk of his more than three millions is left in trust to subsidize the building of a technical school for working class boys -- the very strata of society that produced Powers Jackson himself. The omniscient narrator informs the reader that Powers Jackson felt that the struggle for success would be good for his nephew; in depriving his nephew of an easy fortune, Jackson actually avoids the pitfall most self-made men encounter: producing sons/nephews who resemble more the coddled class of European heirs the self-made men loathe. The nephew proceeds to live beyond his means anyway, speculating in the market (as many of these young, struggling men do), and always owing as he strives to secure more work to pay off yesterday's debts. As many of these Chicago labor novels, this one includes quite a lot of philosophizing about class structure and socialism.

[David Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this would be a dreary social realist piece. I read it only because the title is the same as my recent novel. I was greatly surprised. Yes, it's social realism, but much more subtle and gentle than others of its genre at the time of its writing, 1904. Thoroughly enjoyed it. I do like social realism generally but shy from too much hammering. This one is broader and deeper than what I expected.

[ANGELIA · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 19thc novel had its good points (the late uncle for example, a wise man; many a young person handed a huge inheritance squanders it in no time at all) but I have trouble accepting that the main character's love interest preferred to be struggling with the "common lot" rather than enjoying the finer things in life. No woman's that self-sacrificing (not to mention dumb)! Believe me, I'm a woman, so I know from whence I speak!