Young Caroline Meeber leaves home for the first time and experiences work, love, and the pleasures and responsibilities of independence in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York.

Theodore Dreiser heavily invested himself in The Genius, an autobiographical novel first published in 1915. Thoroughly immersed in the turn-of-the-century art scene, The Genius explores the multiple conflicts between art and business, art and marriage, and between traditional and modern views of sexual morality. Despite heavy editing, The Genius was deemed so shocking that its sale was immediately prohibited by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. It was not released until 1923, and thereafter the episode confirmed Dreiser's status as a writer ahead of his time.

Product Description: Character sketches, combining the best of biography with the finest of narrative - short and illustrative.

Product Description: A master of literary naturalism, Dreiser is known for his great intensity and keen journalistic eye as he examines real-life subjects. This powerful novel explores the dynamics of the financial world during the Civil War and after the stock-market panic caused by the Great Chicago Fire...read more

Product Description: `When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.' The tale of Carrie Meeber's rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood's slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before...read more

Sister Carrie by "Theodore Dreiser" has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels." Caroline "Sister Carrie" Meeber, a young country girl, moves to the big city where she starts realizing her own American Dream, first as a mistress to men that she perceives as superior, and later becoming a famous actress. Dissatisfied with life in her rural Wisconsin home, 18-year-old Caroline takes the train to Chicago, where her older sister Minnie haa agreed to take her in. On the train, Carrie meets Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman, who is attracted to her because of her simple beauty and unspoiled manner. They exchange contact information, but upon discovering the "steady round of toil" and somber atmosphere at her sister's flat, she writes to Drouet and discourages him from calling on her there. One day, after an illness that costs her job, she encounters Drouet on a downtown street. Once again taken by her beauty, and moved by her poverty, he encourages her to dine with him, where, over sirloin and asparagus, he persuades her to leave her sister and move in with him. To press his case, he slips Carrie two ten dollar bills, opening a vista of material possibilities to her. The next day, he rebuffs her feeble attempts to return the money, taking her shopping at a Chicago department store and securing a jacket she covets and some shoes. That night, she writes a good-bye note to Minnie and moves in with Drouet. Theodore Dreiser is considered one of America's greatest naturalists, notable because he wrote at the early stages of the naturalist movement. Sister Carrie was a movement away from the emphasis on morals of the Victorian era and focused more on realism and the base instincts of humans. Sister Carrie went against social and moral norms of the time, as Dreiser presented his characters without judging them. Dreiser fought against censorship of Sister Carrie, brought about because Carrie engaged in affairs and other "illicit sexual relationships" without suffering any consequences. This flouted prevailing norms, that a character who practiced such sinful behavior must be punished in the course of the plot in order to be taught a lesson.

Recounts the author's return to his native Indiana by car in 1916 with artist Franklin Booth

Product Description: 1923. American author, outstanding representative of naturalism, whose novels depict real-life subjects in a harsh light. Dreiser's books were held to be amoral, and he battled throughout his career against censorship and popular taste...read more

Recounts the author's return to his native Indiana by car in 1916 with artist Franklin Booth

A Library of America edition of the classic bestseller from 1925 draws on a notorious murder case from 1910, in which the impoverished son of street preachers commits an act of terrible violence and is surrounded by political corruptions and social hypocrisies throughout his trial.

Product Description: Book by Lehan, Richard Daniel (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Book by Pizer, Donald (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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An autobiography by the noted American novelist covers Dreiser's life up to his departure for St. Louis to work as a reporter for the Globe-Democrat.

Product Description: In this volume of reminiscences and correspondence, Theodore Dreiser's literary secretary and lover, the late Marguerite Tjader, re-created her professional and personal experiences with the novelist and many of his noted contemporaries...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this book Orlov seeks to prove through a detailed reading of An American Tragedy that despite the stylistic faults sometimes marking the novel, one can only fully discover the work's meanings and rightly evaluate Dreiser's artistic stature through a close analysis of the text...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Book by Eastman, Yvette (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Young Carrie Meeber leaves home for the first time and experiences work, love, and the pleasures and responsibilities of independence in late-nineteenth-century Chicago and New York (view table of contents)