Arrowsmith (novel)
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1925 books/1925 novels, American novels
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{{Infobox Book | name = Arrowsmith | title_orig = | translator = | image = Image:Arrowsmith cover.jpg | author = Sinclair Lewis | cover_artist = | country = United States | language = English | series = None | subject = None | genre = Fiction | publisher = Harcourt Brace & Company | release_date = 1925 | media_type = Print (Hardcover and Paperback), Digital, and Audio cassette | pages = 440 (paperback) | size_weight = 6.9 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches, 7.8 ounces (paperback); 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches, 1.4 pounds (hardcover) | isbn = ISBN 0451526910 (paperback); ISBN 0899664024 (hardcover) | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} Arrowsmith is a novel by American author and playwright Sinclair Lewis that was published in 1925. It won the 1926 Pulitzer Prize for Lewis but he refused to accept it. The book was to be co-authored with science writer Paul de Kruif, but Lewis is listed as sole author. Nevertheless, De Kruif received 25% of the royalties on sales.
Arrowsmith tells the story of young Dr. Martin Arrowsmith as he makes his way through medical school, marries, considers the lure of high-paying industrial research, and takes a post with a research institute. The book's final sections deal with Dr Arrowsmith's experiences as he faces an outbreak of plague on a Caribbean island.
Dr Arrowsmith comes originally from "Zenith", the same fictional midwestern town as the characters in Lewis's novel Babbitt. Many of the characters in Arrowsmith are believed to be modelled after people known to De Kruif.
The book contains considerable social comment on the state and prospects of medicine in the United States in the 1920s. Dr. Arrowsmith is a progressive, even something of a rebel, and often challenges the existing state of things when he finds it wanting.
Arrowsmith has been compared with The Citadel by A. J. Cronin which also deals with the life experiences of a young idealistic doctor who tries to challenge and improve the existing system of medical practice.