William Dean Howells (1837–1920) was the first American author to bring a realist aesthetic to the literature of the United States. His stories of middle and upper class life set in the 1880s and 1890s are highly regarded among scholars of American fiction. His most popular novel, "The Rise of Silas Lapham" (1885), depicts a man who, ironically, falls from materialistic fortune by his own mistakes. Other early American realists include Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, author of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (1884), Stephen Crane (1871–1900), and Horatio Alger Jr. (1832–1899).