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Title: The Innocents
A Story for Lovers

Author: Sinclair Lewis

Release Date: May 11, 2008 [EBook #25430]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE INNOCENTS

BOOKS BY
SINCLAIR LEWIS

THE INNOCENTS
THE JOB
THE TRAIL OF THE HAWK
OUR MR. WRENN

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
[ESTABLISHED 1817]

[Illustration: THE INNOCENTS]

THE INNOCENTS

A STORY FOR LOVERS

BY
SINCLAIR LEWIS

AUTHOR OF "THE TRAIL OF THE HAWK" "THE JOB" ETC.

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON

THE INNOCENTS

Copyright, 1917, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published October, 1917
F-R

A DEDICATORY INTRODUCTION

If this were a ponderous work of realism, such as the author has
attempted to write, and will doubtless essay again, it would be perilous
to dedicate it to the splendid assembly of young British writers, lest
the critics search for Influences and Imitations. But since this is a
flagrant excursion, a tale for people who still read Dickens and clip
out spring poetry and love old people and children, it may safely
confess the writer's strident admiration for Compton Mackenzie, Hugh
Walpole, Oliver Onions, D. H. Lawrence, J. D. Beresford, Gilbert Cannan,
Patrick MacGill, and their peers, whose novels are the histories of our
contemporaneous Golden Age. Nor may these be mentioned without a yet
more enthusiastic tribute to their master and teacher (he probably
abominates being called either a master or a teacher), H. G. Wells.

THE INNOCENTS

CHAPTER I

Mr. and Mrs. Seth Appleby were almost old. They called each other
"Father" and "Mother." But frequently they were guilty of holding hands,
or of cuddling together in corners,