His strongest novels are _A Modern Instance_ (1882), _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ (1885), _The Minister's Charge_ (1886), _Indian Summer_ (1886), and _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (1889). These belong to the middle period of his career. Before this, his mastery of character portrayal had not culminated, and later, his power of artistic selection and repression was not so strictly exercised. _The Rise of Silas Lapham_ is a story of the home life and business career of a self-made merchant, who has the customary braggadocio and lack of culture, but who possesses a substantial integrity at the root of his nature. The little shortcomings in social polish, so keenly felt by his wife and daughters, as they rise to a position due to great wealth, the small questions of decorum, and the details of business take up a large part of the reader's attention; but they are treated with such ease, naturalness, repressed humor, refinement of art, and truth in sketching provincial types of character, that the story is a triumph of realistic creation. _A Modern Instance_ is not so pleasant a book, but the attention is firmly held by the strong, realistic presentation of the jealousy, the boredom, the temptations, and the dishonesty exhibited in a household of a commonplace, ill-mated pair. _Indian Summer_ begins well, proceeds well, and ends well. It may be a trifle more conventional than the two other novels just mentioned, but it is altogether delightful. The conversations display keen insight into the heart of the young, imaginative girl and of the older woman and man. _The Minister's Charge_ is thoroughly individual. The young boy seems so close to his readers that every detail in his life becomes important. The other people are also full of real blood, while the background is skillfully arranged to heighten the effect of the characters. _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ would be decidedly improved if many pages were omitted, but it is full of lifelike characters, and it sometimes approaches the dramatic, in a way unusual with Howells. In his effort to present life without any misleading ideas of heroism, beauty, or idyllic sweetness, Howells sometimes goes so far toward the opposite extreme as to write stories that seem to be filled with commonplace women, humdrum lives, and men like Northwick in _The Quality of Mercy_, of whom one of the characters says:-- "He was a mere creature of circumstances like the rest of us! His environment made him rich, and his environment made him a rogue. Sometimes I think there _was_ nothing to Northwick except what happened to him." But in such work as the five novels enumerated, Howells shows decided ability in portraying attractive characters, in making their faults human and as interesting as their virtues, in causing ordinary life to yield variety of incident and amusing scenes, and, finally, in engaging his characters in homelike, natural, self-revealing conversations, which are often spiced with wit.