1888. Howells was an American realist author. He wrote for various magazines including Atlantic Monthly and Harper's Magazine. His career blossomed after the publication of his first realist novel, A Modern Instance. April Hopes begins: From his place on the floor of the Hemenway Gymnasium Mr. Elbridge G. Mavering looked on at the Class Day gaiety with the advantage which his stature gave him over most people there. Hundreds of these were pretty girls, in a great variety of charming costumes, such as the eclecticism of modern fashion permits, and all sorts of ingenious compromises between walking dress and ball dress. It struck him that the young men on whose arms they hung, in promenading around the long oval within the crowd of stationary spectators, were very much younger than students used to be, whether they wore the dress-coasts of the Seniors or the cutaways of the Juniors and Sophomores; and the young girls themselves did not look so old as he remembered them in his day. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.