Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis New York: Harcourt, fourth printing, November 1922. Inscribed by Lewis to his then assistant, Lou Florey; signed additionally by Paul de Kruif.

The success and controversy of Babbitt was instrumental with Lewis winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1930 by the Swedish Academy. Novelist and critic Ludwig Lewisohn writes of Babbitt: "What gives Babbitt its artistic value is Mr. Lewis's profound recognition that these noisy lives are lived by fear and without desire".

The novel's satirical depiction of the social pressures and conformity of the middle-class and the enterprising American businessman are juxtaposed against the backdrop of the fictional midwestern town of Zenith. Its protagonist, George F. Babbitt, a middle-class, middle-aged realtor and his ongoing concern of his family social status inevitably leads to his dissolution in the "American Dream".