In preparing for teaching William Dean Howells' _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ this week, I was struck by some of the contemporary comment over his novel that I always considered very safe and conventional. (This has Mark Twain content--just stay with me, as Br'er Perot would say). From the Norton Critical Edition, I could see some of the astute contemporary reviewers, but several were incredibly hostile. What surprised me were the 1880s readers who saw this novel as so inartistic, so threatenting. For one thing, his publishers freaked out over his use of the word "dynamite" in a clearly sarcastic comment by Bromfield Corey. Apparently, there was so much concern over anarchists that merely to say the word was considered verboten. Even more interestingly, some reviewers felt that Howells was undermining all art with what they felt was his "scientific" novel, devoid of all humanity and aesthetics. Here's my Mark Twain point: _Silas Lapham_ was published serially in the _Century_ magazine, as was _Huckleberry Finn_, in 1885. Here was Howells, a respected writer, being pilloried for being "low," by the same audience that first read _HF_. To me, this puts in perspective just how radical Huck must have seemed to such an audience. I can't imagine any novel being less "dangerous" than _Silas Lapham_ (damn good, but hardly subversive or dangerous), and I can think of few novels MORE dangerous and subversive than Huck. So wouldn't that audience be just blown away? Ah, those Victorians!