Howells had moved to Massachusetts in the 1860s and became influential as the editor of the Atlantic Monthly, a role he held until 1881. The 1880s proved to be an extremely prolific period for him; in that decade, Howells published nine novels, a novella, several magazine articles, and a few plays.[1] He completed The Rise of Silas Lapham while living at 302 Beacon Street in Boston.[2]
The Rise of Silas Lapham was first serialized in The Century Magazine beginning in 1884, the same year that the magazine also serialized The Bostonians by Henry James and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, two other important examples of literary realism.[3] The magazine's editor, Richard Watson Gilder, was concerned about any descriptions of violence, however, especially after recent anarchist activity, and asked Howells to edit a line that was originally as a character noting his desire of "applying dynamite to those rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensitive houses".[4]