I'm going to nominate
Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis. Lewis was the first American Nobelist in Literature and the movie won three Oscars in 1961, including Burt Lancaster as Best Actor.
From Goodreads:
Quote:
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Universally recognized as a landmark in American literature, Elmer Gantry scandalized readers when it was first published, causing Sinclair Lewis to be "invited" to a jail cell in New Hampshire and to his own lynching in Virginia. His portrait of a golden-tongued evangelist who rises to power within his church--a saver of souls who lives a life of duplicity, sensuality, and ruthless self-indulgence--is also the record of a period, a reign of grotesque vulgarity, which but for Lewis would have left no trace of itself. Elmer Gantry has been called the greatest, most vital, and most penetrating study of hypocrisy that has been written since the works of Voltaire.
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Sinclair Lewis is in the public domain in Canada and other Life+50 countries and in Australia. The Amazon US and UK editions are a little dubious, but they link to a legitimate Whispersync Audible version.
University of Adelaide - free (ePub and Kindle downloads)
Amazon UK - £2.23
Amazon US - $2.99