Sinclair Lewis 1885 - 1951 American novelist and author of Main Street, He was the first American awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1930) Fine content T.L.S. 1p. 4to., Bermuda, Mar. 13, 1936 Lewis offers his advice to an aspiring author: " - the value Of college for a writer is that you cannot generalize... there are three classes. Those for whom college is excellent because of imperfections in their early training, those for who it is quite unnecessary because as men like Thomas Hardy and Henry Mencken did, they can work by themselves. ..and those for whom it is injurious... [You say] a fellow who writes today with no aim save to amuse himself is a chump... My answer... is decidedly No!...."