Sinclair Lewis 
Free Air (Annotated) 

• This edition includes the following editor’s introduction: Sinclair Lewis, a controversial Nobel Laureate in Literature

First published in 1919, ‘Free Air’ is a road novel by American author and Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis. A silent film adaptation of the novel was also released in 1922.



‘Free Air’ follows the adventures of Claire Boltwood, an aristocratic New Englander who, in the early days of the 20th century, travels with her father by automobile from New York City to the Pacific Northwest, where she falls in love with a nice, down-to-earth young man…



‘Free Air’ was one of the first novels about an automobile-powered road trip across the United States, decades before Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road, ” dependable vehicles, and interstate highways. It offers fascinating accounts of America’s little travelled, scenic byways, from Great Cloud, Minnesota to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone in Wyoming.