This study of Howells\u27 fiction is a discussion of representative novels of the author\u27s from A Foregone Conclusion in 1875 through his last novel, The Vacation of the Kelwyns, in 1920. The arrangement of the novels in chronological order is primarily for convenience; no attempt has been made to trace the literary development of the author. My purpose, rather, has been to show that Howells, throughout the greater part of his career as a novelist, was consistent in his literary method. To understand that method is to have a better understanding of meaning in the novels. Finally, in demonstrating that there exists a genuine relationship between method and meaning in the novels, I have suggested that Howells\u27 fiction embodies an attitude which, as later formulated in the philosophy of William James, came to be known as pragmatism
