author
Edward Everett Howe
A sharp-tongued Midwestern newspaperman and novelist, he turned small-town life into fiction that readers still remember for its wit and realism. Best known as E. W. Howe, he built a reputation on unsparing observations, satire, and a style that was plain, funny, and often bracingly blunt.
1 Audiobook
The chronicles of Break o'Day
by Edward Everett Howe
About the author
Born in Wabash County, Indiana, in 1853, Edgar Watson Howe grew up in Missouri and Nebraska and left school early. He worked as a printer and newspaperman, experiences that shaped the direct, skeptical voice that later made him famous.
After starting newspapers in Colorado and Nebraska, he settled in Atchison, Kansas, where he founded the Atchison Daily Globe. He became widely known for his editorials and for The Story of a Country Town (1883), a novel first published privately after commercial publishers turned it down. The book later earned lasting recognition as an important early realist portrait of Midwestern small-town life.
Howe went on to write more fiction, travel books, and commentary, and he remained a nationally noticed newspaper and magazine editor for decades, including through E. W. Howe's Monthly. His work is often remembered for its dry humor, independence, and willingness to puncture illusions about politics, society, and everyday human behavior.