Theodore Dreiser Books

"Sister Carrie", to begin with, is written in a most curious fashion. Theodore Dreiser, an author I'd never heard of before, writes in a very interesting and distinct style. Some would probably feel frustrated with it, as well as his rather blunt way of writing, but it's rather different and certainly good.

A story of a girl's slow and steady rise, "Sister Carrie" will capture readers first with its intrigue. Obviously, the idea of young Carrie whisked away to the city and within moments as a wealthier man's "wife", will have raised a few eyebrows. The way her life progresses is interesting too, from extremely low, to good, to almost better off, to bad, to better, and then finally to excellent. Her personality, though relatively static, is curious to follow as well. At first, as a meek, shy, pretty girl, she gives off the very image of chastity. At the end, she is a strong, independent woman. The change is slow, and yet Carrie does not ultimately change all that much.

Above all, though, it's a great read. It's written in such a way that's easy to read, and though there are the usual dry spots of an early 20th century novel, it reads well. Characters are impressive in their realistic qualities - their weaknesses, their faults, their virtues and their beliefs. The story progresses smoothly and will keep the reader hooked.

A great read, cool writing, and a curious story. All in all, a pretty awesome book. I wish I'd found it sooner. Recommended!

This is about life for a single woman at the turn of the century, when a good marriage or poverty were the only two choices a woman had, along with needlepoint. Yes, times were difficult for a single woman who had to go it alone; I will give that point. However, I don't see that as excuse to throw morality out the door, to use and be used by other people, and be constantly on the prowl for somebody better or more, prettier "things". I had a dislike of Carrie from early on. Dreiser repeatedly tries to portray her as a little country innocent when she was, in fact, a shallow, dull, weak-minded but evidently physically attractive woman. She uses her sister then dumps her; she uses her first "live in" boyfriend, then dumps him for a married man; she uses the married man but is on the lookout for another. She is always looking for happiness by latching on to someone else's money and finery. Wouldn't you know it, she manages to become a self-supporting actress after using everybody along the way. Oh, but she is innocent and naive the whole time--yeah right. Dreiser uses Carrie as a vehicle to attempt to show capitalism as being vulgar, selfish, and self-destructing. If Carrie were typical, he would have a point.

The book is a little over-the-top, in my opinion. Carrie is just too pretty, too "innocent"; the men are incredibly stupid to be lead around by the nose by this creature. The married man's collapse and ruin over his failure with Carrie is over done. The characters are all dislikable and hard to identify with. The book left a sour tast in my mouth.

'Sister Carrie' is about a naive girl from the boonies, circa 1890, who travels to Chicago to find more out of life. She runs into men, gets swept into going to New York where her life goes through great changes when the man she is with, who happens to be her sole provider, completely unravels emotionally, spiritually and financially. Carrie's life proceeds in a manner very atypical of heroines of that era. The story builds to a very fine conclusion.

My only complaint with 'Sister Carrie' is that it does take some time to "warm up", and the author's writing style not especially fluid. I also felt after reading the book I never completely understood Carrie or the men in her life, ... but maybe the author left it to the reader ponder over afterwards??


Bottom line: certainly a remarkable piece of literature in its day, and thankfully the material hasn't aged a bit. Recommended.

Written at a time when women still lacked the right to vote, Sister Carrie offers an uncommon (and not initially accepted) commentary on women and independence. It also addresses that timeless theme of how the city changes the individual. Dreiser's turn of the century novel chronicles the young adult life of Carrie Meeber, who leaves her small town home for a more exciting life of Chicago. Taking residence at her sister Minnie's meager apartment, Carrie is immediately plunged into a pit of lower class struggles; to pull her weight she takes a job as a factory girl in a shoe shop for wages that can barely afford her basic necessities let alone the simple pleasures of Chicago life. Not quite used to the rigorous demands of intense manual labor, she yearns for something greater. By chance, she bumps into a wealthy, flirtatious gentleman - Drouet - whom she had previously met on her train ride into Chicago. His initial courting is unsuccessful but he eventually takes Carrie on as a kept mistress. Their relationship is at best superficial. He offers material things and compliments to her beauty.

Without spoiling the rest of the story, Carrie's raw and innocent drive for success takes her on a series of relationships and adventures first in Chicago and later in New York. As a historical piece, Dreiser provides vivid descriptions of these two cities right down to the street level. He treats the city as a state of mind, with narrative insights weaved between powerful stretches of dialogue.

100 years later, present-day readers might see Carrie as a heroine, despite her unabashed materialism. This was the very reason for its lack of marketing support; the historical fact is that the wife of Doubleday's CEO was upset by Carrie's bachelorette success going "unpunished" by the author.

As was mentioned above, the "city" has transformed her into a woman who is set in her ambitions. Dreiser's style allows us to see things from the point of view of many characters and not just Carrie's. There are snippets of moralizing here and there which give the reader a sense that Dreiser was in some ways a prophet - he foresaw the unbridled potential of American individuality, its drawbacks, and how it is generally actualized in the American city. And for the time period, this was a paradox for women. But Carrie shamelessly lives her life they way she wants to. Classism and sexism aside, Carrie Meeber carries on the American dream.

"Increase of material comforts, it may be generally laid down, does not in any way whatsoever conduce to moral growth." Mahatma Gandhi

"She (Carrie Meeber) wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she was confused as to what these things might be." p. 145 "Sister Carrie"

Critics may scoff at the immorality of the main characters, the persistently subtle, yet always stinging slams at the evils of Capitalism, or how depressing the novel is. But despite it all, my interest never waned from the first page to the last. Yes, Dreiser's super-duper liberal (although liberal back in 1900 is a tad different than what we consider liberal today), but this man could sure write beautifully! At times, he's almost a poet, as I found myself reading some sentences and paragraphs two to three times over for their sublime brilliance.

Dreiser's prose is both honest and brave. He develops his characters beautifully, at a slow, methodic pace, carefully unraveling the mysterious air of each of the three main characters until the very last pages. Yes, he's iconoclastic. Yes, he gets a bit too preachy toward the end of the novel. Yes, he's a bit dark and discouraging. Yes he's a bit too liberal for many folks. And yes, his bitter, but many times brilliant observations are a tad too cluttered with sarcasm and irony. Yet for me, I just couldn't put this one down, nor forget about it when I finally did.

Carrie, Carrie, Carrie ... it is so easy for all of us to sit back and judge you. You slept your way to the top in many people's eyes. You sold your soul to become successful in our material world. Yet most people who have become successful in our society have led far worse lives than Dreiser's "Sister Carrie" and many of them are lionized. We have to ask ourselves, is it our jealous, judgmental nature that makes many of us go tisk-tisk about the lack of this gal's morals? My glass house is waaaay too thin to do this. Yet, I do not advocate in any way, shape or form using others to get what you want in life. The pursuit of materialism should never mean the sacrifice of one's ethics, morals and values. However, I do believe that Carrie was coming to this realization toward the end of the novel. In order to not disclose too much to those who haven't read this yet, I will say no more.

As I stated above, this classic definitely isn't without its imperfections. If you are a staunch conservative, there's a good chance this writer will irk you a bit. I also thought Dreiser was a bit too harsh in regards to the fate of the book's male protagonist, perhaps punishing him for being the quintessential all-American, conservative Capitalist that he represented early on. He also is a writer who tends to be idealistic to a fault, getting way too preachy and sanctimonious for most of us mere, marred mortals to handle at times.

Overall though, I really, really dug this classic novel. This is the first time I have read Dreiser, and I greatly admire his compelling, penetrative style. The story is well written, no real action, very little plot, mostly a character study of some very realistic people whom we all have known in life. The beauty of this simplistic story is the way it plays on just about every emotion imaginable, which made it for me, never a dull moment.

I loved it. 5 Stars!

Thie edition by North books is a good quality hardcover with a rather plain dust jacket. Overall, a good buy for the money.

I found this book to be very engaging for the most part, very easy to read compared to other books I have read recently. But I found Dreiser's Sister Carrie to be more compelling and more ultimately satisfying. Jennie Gerhardt is the story of a remarkably innocent, caring, beautiful but very poor young woman who -- because of her unparalleled beauty and loving, simple, humble, trusting, compliant nature -- has "illicit" affairs with two older, highly reputable, influential men, one leading to the birth of a child out of wedlock. Kind of a Cinderella story, but where the Prince doesn't marry Cinderella. This was of course shocking stuff for a 1911 novel. And, because it describes how "proper" people thought in that bygone era, it makes us understand clearly why it was so shocking. Dreiser also does some philosophizing here and there in the book, stepping back and decrying the injustice of society, or inserting some general paragraphs regarding his thoughts on how puzzling life truly is. It is a compassionate, honorable, worthy book with a ponderous, thorough style to it, following the lives of the key characters through to the bitter end. But I felt that the book lost some of its power as it labored on to its conclusion, which seemed to be that there is no conclusion... other than, of course, what the reader makes of it.

This edition of Dreiser's JENNIE GERHARDT attempts to "correct" the text that appeared in 1911 when the book was first published. Back then the editors at Harper's agreed to publish the novel only if they could make substantial changes to the text, softening Dreiser's criticisms of organized religion and the rich, and diluting the "immoral" behavior of the main character. Dreiser reportedly didn't like the changes, fought to get some of them re-instated, but eventually had to yield since no other publisher would touch the book. Using preserved typescripts, this edition is closer to the one Dreiser submitted before cuts were made.

Jennie Gerhardt has an out-of-wedlock child by Senator Brander, which she is able to keep secret from the wealthy socialite Lester Kane, whom she takes up with. He finds out about the child, however, and is unaffected by the news. He continues to live with her in a complicated arrangement, until Jennie finds out that Lester's father will basically disinherit him if he doesn't stop living with her and forces him to leave (echoes of WASHINGTON SQUARE by James and the subsequent movie version THE HEIRESS here). He marries Letty Gerald, a woman from his own social class, but is miserable. When he becomes ill and is alone, he summons Jennie and declares his true love for her.

The novel is an interesting one. Lester is a pessimistic, cynical, atheistic man while Jennie is much simpler and has a mystical belief in the goodness of life. The "battleground" on which these opposing beliefs are fought over is made fascinating by Dreiser. Also Lester's struggle with his own wealthy class system, which he is never comfortable with and rebels against, is handled admirably and honestly by the author (it became a major theme in fiction by WW I). This was Dreiser's second novel after SISTER CARRIE; it's not as good as that first book, but it's a solid work of fiction nonetheless.

Truly, Jenny Gerhardt has a lot of heart.

Though she makes some bad decisions and often lacks the confindence that could have reinvented her in the magnified binocular-eyes of society, Dreiser's love for the character shines and we, the readers, grow to love her also. Several glimmers of why Dreiser is the transcendent novelist that he is peek out from the fast moving story of Jennie Gerhardt.

"She was not, like so many, endeavoring to put the ocean into a tea-cup or to tie up the shifting universe in a mess of strings called law."

"The loveliness of seventeen is centuries old. That is why passion is almost sad."

"So this little household drifted along quietly and dreamily indeed, but always with the undercurrent of feeling which ran so still because it was so deep."

I admit to you, I have never been very interested by the sometimes dry prose offered in the writing of earlier time periods. But Dreiser seems to me a rare gem in the world of early 20th century fiction.

However, the one reason I am writing a 4 star review is because of the ending of this novel. After several mini-climaxes, the book ends. --just like that. With a grim display of "if only". And although most, if not all of us, identify with that theme, I felt like I MUST have read 366 pages for something other than that.

However, I would still recommend it. It is a delicate work of art whose power and beauty cannot be denied.

This was the first novel I ever read by Theodore Dreiser. The reason why I selected it was because in the film, American Splendor, Harvey Pekar mentions the novel and he's shown finishing it in the film. I wanted to know and feel what Mr. Pekar felt. And I believe I did. The tragedy of Jennie Gerhardt's life resonated with me. I was anguished over Jenny's loneliness and the fact that Lester could never make up his mind to marry her. I cried. Dreiser's observation of turn of the century high society and their view of the poor as pariahs still seems relevant today. We still live in a time of social and financial inequality.

Dreiser's writing style is definitely not modern. And his phrasing is not structured in the active voice. It's more long-winded. You need to enjoy his descriptions and his philosophical speculations that do make the novel more meaningful. You can't take the social critic out of Dreiser. If you can make time in your life to sit down and read this novel, you will come away having been moved by Dreiser's heartfelt portrayal of the human condition. May each and everyone one of you be as lucky to love as deeply as Jennie did.

The Financier says as much about the importance of the conjugal nuclear family (the Butlers and the Cowperwoods) and its struggle to put up just the right airs, as it does about America's love for building up its giants, tearing them down and rebuilding them. Through Frank Cowperwood's financial acumen and sheer grit, he raises his family's (father's) humble beginnings onto Philadelphia's loftier social fabric. But the railroads and city treasurer shennanigans are only part of his story. Determination, focus and most of all hubris make Cowperwood one part angel, three parts beast: providing the finer things for his parents and immediate family but sentencing his wife, Lillian, to a life replete with rumors, a city's preoccupation with his mistress and love compromised.

It is astonishing how many figures from recent headlines--Donald Trump, Michael Milkin, Bill Clinton and even Michael Jackson--come to mind by The Financier's end. More than a century later, Dreiser's commentary rings hauntingly true.

Ah, Theodore Dreiser... Even though I don't really enjoy reading him at times, I can't stay away. This is the third Dreiser book I've read (The other two: The Titan, and Sister Carrie). I would certainly recommend Sister Carrie over The Financier, but I would recommend this book over its succesor, The Titan.

The Financier is the by now familiar tale of the rise/fall/rise of an aspiring financial tycoon. The only difference between Frank Cowperwood (protagonist of The Financier) and the Gordon Gecko of 80's "Wall Street" fame, is that Cowperwood is working in the 1860's , not the 1980's and he lives in Philly, not NYC.

Cowperwood is the son of a bank vice president. He posseses a preternatural gift for finance and an, ahem, well developed, sense of self interest. Cowperwood is the sort of Spencerian/ Darwinian/Nietchzian "super man" that is as common in early twentieth century American fiction as the self obsessed yuppie has become in early twenty first century American television.

Cowperwood's catch phrase during this book is "I satisfy myself." Personally, I found that phrase a tad redolent of omanism, if you know what I mean, but I'm sure Dreiser had the purest of intentions at the time.

The plot of the book concerns machinations involving Cowperwood and his handling of city bonds. I know, it sounds dry. Well, it is dry, and boring, especially for the first hundred and fifty pages, where Dresier seems intent on teaching the readers all about the operation of financial markets in Philly in the 1860's.

The story picks up when a fire hits Chicago, and Cowperwood's shenanigans are detected. Cowperwood is then tried, convicted and sent to prison. It's a good time. Makes for fun reading.

Of almost equal importance is Cowperwood's penchant for the illicit affair. His courtship of Aileen Butler, the daughter of one of his patrons, absorbs a good forty percent of the book. In "The Titan", Butler becomes his wife when they move to Chicago.
Overall, I'd say the book is worth checking out if only for Dreiser's reportage. You can practically taste the 1860's. Also notable is his expert discussion of financial markets in that period, and I might add, his lovely descrption of conditions at the Eastern Pentitentiary.

Check it out.

If you like this book, you might also want to check out the Titan, Sister Carrie, Frank Norris's "The Pit" and that same author's "The Octopus", for similarly themed work.

This novel, which closely follows the real-life doings of Philadelphia streetcar magnate Charles T. Yerkes, was the first volume in a trilogy entitled "A Trilogy of Desire." Dreiser, an astute observer of the business world circa 1900, a critic and questioner of some of the ways of capitalism as it was working itself out in America, especially as it created imbalances in wealth and power among the population - a form of social Darwinism that emphasized the idea of "survival of the fittest" at the expense of the poor and weak - chose Yerkes as a model of the man who had made it to the top of the business heap. He infused his fictional character Frank Cowperwood with many of Yerkes's traits: intelligence, cunning, ruthlessness, amorality; and combined these with a firm belief in monopoly as the surest way to power, along with the necessity of political bribery. Cowperwood makes it to the top almost with ease, first legally with the help of the government's issuing bonds to finance Civil War military campaigns, and then illegally when he uses Philadelphia city funds for his own purposes. While engaged in this latter scheme, the Panic of 1871 exposes his criminality and he goes to prison for it. He feels no remorse for what he's done, and it's while in prison that he falls in love with Aileen Butler, a woman as amoral as he is, and decides, when he gets out, to divorce his wife and take up with her. Sure enough, after making millions in the stock market thanks to another panic that allows him to buy valuable stocks for a fraction of their worth, the book ends with Aileen and him heading west to Chicago on a train.

If Dreiser has a fault it's his tendency in all his novels to overwrite them; he is so stocked with detailed information regarding the affairs of his characters that he loses sight of what to put in and what to exclude. Other than that, his realistic account of Cowperwood and the business practices he utilizes to make his fortune is a powerful examination of not only the Gilded Age, but of American capitalism and American life that has echoes even down to today in our era of corporate greed and Enron trials. Unsettling is the fact that Dreiser has Cowperwood escape with his money and amoral perspectives still intact.

Every person has a talent, Frank Cowperwood had a talent to deal with finances. Theodore Dreiser's book Financier is deserving of a five-star rating, because it depicts the life of a fearless person with a strong spirit, great strength of will; a person who can bring his dreams into reality. Dreiser narrates about Frank's success and failures during his life. In my opinion, many people would like to be more like Frank Cowperwood. The author reveals all aspects of reality of financial world in 1800s through four stages of the life of the protagonist of his novel: childhood and adolescence, the beginning of his independent career, success, and bankruptcy.

Frank Cowperwood was born in the middle class loving family. He was interested in finances from his childhood and was always surrounded by people who dealt with money. His father was an example for Frank Cowperwood, who was a born financier, and started to develop his talent from the early age. After he left school at seventeen with the help from his uncle he worked in a few companies and showed himself as a valuable employee. His bosses offered him the best terms to work in. But he preferred to start his own business. In this stage of his life he got married and had two precious babies.

He tried to surround himself by people who were influential in business world. Frank was trying to involve as many people as he could who was possible to put the money into the business. From the beginning he knew that everything is going to be his way, because he was sure in himself and worked for it really hard. Sometimes Frank went to his father for the advice. His father was the only person he could trust and tell everything about his plans. From this stage he began his independent career. Frank met new people who opened a big path in the financial world and then he began a new life of success and triumph.

Frank Cowperwood became one of the influential people in the United States. Many businessmen asked his opinion and advise on variety of financial topics. He was very knowledgeable in all financial operations, besides his intuition helped him to find a way to success and profit. Frank Cowperwood had unlimited loans in all banks, as he was a valuable and trustworthy customer for them. The success of his business helped him to buy a new house for him and his parents. Frank Cowperwood achieved his goal to have a lot of money. But he needed those money not just for having them, he used money to satisfy his desires and desires of his close people.

Unfortunately, the life of Frank Cowperwood was not a smooth and easy at all times. Due to the fire in Chicago in 1871 his business had to cope with a lot of problems. After publication of the article in the newspaper about the disaster in Windy city people did not feel safe. Other businessmen who had dealt with Frank Cowperwood requested that he returned their money right away. He tried to use different ways to protect his company from bankruptcy and stay in business. But he was not able to succeed. He had to face a bankruptcy and experienced all aspects of that crisis. Creditors took his house and all valuables, he was thrown in the jail as he was accused in stealing money. Financier was able to cope with this misfortune, he did not lose his hope for the better. Frank Cowperwood moved to Chicago where he was able to start a new life of success and fortune.

I was astonished by this book as the author illustrated a person who was ready to face all storms of life in strong spirit and hope for happy future. Dreiser was able to give a vivid picture of powerful business and people who were able to succeed in it and those who failed. Dreiser showed a reader that every human can achieve his/her goal if a person can find his talent and develop it in the right channel.

Theodore Dreiser writes a towering novel in The Financier. It would be a grave oversimplification to state that this is a novel about "business". Rather, he is among the very first American writers that dealt with realism. Frank North was certainly another. Between them they mark an inflection point in writing. They wrote about the world as they saw it, somewhat akin to journalism. They didn't mind, but rather relished, getting "dirty" in the world of commerce. Men toiled in this world - why not write about it and the troubles and ethical delimas created therein?

This work is about a man's drive, his inability to satisfy himself, relationship destruction, identity loss and society. It demonstrates in very real terms how high one can climb and then fall. It is a book that deals with ethics and ponders about whether needs can ever be truly met by the most driven.

This book clearly belongs up there with the great ones. It shows a writing style and a mind of a genius. It also began to set the pace for some great writing in the 20th Century.

I read Sister Carrie when I was a teenager in China. The other day I listened to a Hoosier's holiday on Talking Books. He went back to his hometown after some thirty years. I went back to my hometown, Hangzhou, China and saw my old house now completely destroyed and replaced by a huge scaffolding. Somehow I felt my experience wasn't so different from Dreisers. I liked the book so much I'm going to order a copy to read certain parts again, although I have been in Indianapolis exactly once in my lifetime. Indianapolis and Hangzhou are world's apart. Dreiser and me are only 50 years apart but I feel I knew how he felt. Kai Lai Chung

I read Sister Carrie when I was a teenager in China. The other day I listened to a Hoosier's holiday on Talking Books. He went back to his hometown after some thirty years. I went back to my hometown, Hangzhou, China and saw my old house now completely destroyed and replaced by a huge scaffolding. Somehow I felt my experience wasn't so different from Dreisers. I liked the book so much I'm going to order a copy to read certain parts again, although I have been in Indianapolis exactly once in my lifetime. Indianapolis and Hangzhou are world's apart. Dreiser and me are only 50 years apart but I feel I knew how he felt. Kai Lai Chung

Theodore Dreiser is one of America's great authors, but he is also an enigma wrapped inside a contradiction. Forever in awe of the "great social forces" lurching mankind forward, and inspired by the great financial titans and clever capitalist geniuses who attempted to reap the whirlwind, Dreiser nevertheless embraced communism late in his life as the antidote for the injustices plaguing mankind. He was a spirited social rebel, railing against orthodoxy and Puritan "Babbitts" who would foist their Midwestern morality down upon him, but at the same time, as he demonstrates in this book, his idealization of the small-town Hoosier philistines in Warsaw, Sullivan, and other whistle stop towns far removed from the Broadway footlights he had known intimately by the time this epic journey to the Heartland commences. Dreiser devoted hundreds, perhaps thousands of pages of prose to attacking the small-town "Babbitts" sharing the views of another world-weary cynic, Henry Louis Mencken. And yet, for all his caustic attitudes toward rigid conventions, Dreiser swoons in near reverie after catching first glimpse of the mundane streets, the old grammar school, feed store, and the simple folk he remembered from his youth. In other passages,examples of plain country living he encounters along the bumpy, dusty backroads of America circa 1914, are ridiculed and scorned as one would commonly expect of Theodore Dreiser and his war against society's religious and social conventions. Nevertheless, Dreiser's personal observations on life are often more engaging and inciteful than in some of his later novels. He is an American master; a pioneer of literary realism, and despite the contradictions, this is a fine and engaging volume exploring a vanished American landscape. Mr. Brinkley is to be commended for presenting it to the reading public again after all these years.

In the summer of 1915, at a party in NYC for Edgar Lee Masters, illustrator Franklin Booth, a fellow Hoosier, asked Dreiser if he would care to accompany him on a motor trip to Indiana. Sensing the possibility of making a book out of the trip, Dreiser agreed. On August 11, Dreiser and Booth, along with a driver/mechanic named Speed, left NYC for the great midwest of their childhoods.

This, the book that resulted from the trip, is many things: travelogue, personal memoir, soap box for Dreiser's unorthodox beliefs, among other things. As a travelogue, it's relatively easy to trace their journey almost town to town (no maps are in the book) because Dreiser names many of them; he is also impressed by a lot of them and seems to be consistently enthused about what might be around the next bend. The year being 1915, one might assume they would've taken the newly established Lincoln Highway, but they didn't, electing to go via a more circuitous route through Scranton, Elmira, and Buffalo. Dreiser is obviously thrilled by motor travel and waxes ecstatically about it throughout the trip.

After reaching Indiana and visiting some old familiar places, Dreiser's comments are sometimes cynical and critical (especially of small-town attitudes and prejudices), but are also enthusiastic and proud (he has a Whitmanesque belief in the American people). But the reader must also endure sentences like these: "I often ask myself what it is all about, anyhow, and what are we here for, and why should anyone worry whether they are low or high, or moral or immoral. What difference does it really make?" Expressing sentiments like these is what kept Dreiser in trouble with the critics.

All in all, it's a very interesting book. Dreiser's muscular prose pulls the reader along, and most of what he has to say is still relevant. The only thing sorely missing is an index, which would be very helpful. Like all long car trips there are slow, dreary stretches, but not nearly enough to wish you stayed home.

I sought this novel to supplement the memoirs "Dawn" and "Newspaper Days" as a way to gain additional insight into Theodore Dreiser's intriguing personality. I was not disappointed. The book provides information about Dreiser's sexual appetite, motivations, and philosophy. It also is an engaging read in the way that "Sister Carrie" and "Jennie Gerhart" are. Sure, Dreiser can go on in detail in ways that an editor could have made more succinct, and his sentence structure could become byzantine or odd. But the plot is well structured and the sense of impending doom that crops up is mercifully relented so that the novel does not become as squirm-inducing as "An Amercian Tragedy." The reader's sympathy is evenly divided among the principles and the events are seen as fate intertwining with the forces and choices of the personalities. Dreiser even more than Sinclair Lewis is my favorite depictor of U.S. life early in the 20th century.

Dreiser is the second author recommended by H.L. Mencken I have discovered. In Carl Bode's Mencken biography, he describes the libertarian critic's affinity for authors of the same ilk. "The Genius" describes an individualist who exists like many of us creative types, sometimes successful but unwilling to leave our wonderful, interesting existence. Much like Axel Heyst in Joseph Conrad's "Victory," the artist in "The Genius" is a great guy, a wonderful, creative guy. But as happens to the Greek heros their hubris leads to the inevitable downfall. You feel sorry for the main characters in both novels, but you feel fulfilled by them as well, just as free-thinking souls become better humans after reading Mencken...

This was Theodore Dreiser's favorite of his own novels - and his most autobiographical. Although Eugene Witla, the main character, is a painter, Dreiser modeled him so closely after himself that some critics have used incidents from the book as evidence for things in his own life. Much of the novel is an examination and criticism of the sexual mores of the time, which Dreiser felt restrictive and counter-productive.

In the initial section of the novel, after moving to Chicago to pursue a career as an artist, Witla meets Angela Blue; after enjoying much of what the city has to offer (including other woman), Angela and Witla marry.

The next part of the book is concerned mainly with Witla trying to make it as a struggling artist. Like Dreiser himself, Witla works for a while as a manual laborer and then as an illustrator in an advertising agency, where he shows some success.

But Witla can't control his restless sexual impulses and much of the last section of the novel concerns his affair with the very young Suzanne Dale, who is too immature and controlled by her mother to return Witla's affections. Angela also becomes pregnant at this time; after Suzanne is dragged off to Europe by her mother, thus ending anything that existed between her daughter and Witla, Angela delivers a baby girl but dies in the process. The book ends with an apparently wiser Witla caring for his daughter, also named Angela.

The last section is the least effective: what Witla could see in Suzanne Dale is hard to imagine. The early parts of the book are extremely well done, however. What distinguishes the book (and also got it banned) is Dreiser's unflinching portrayal of female sexual desire being as strong as the male's. In the midst of Witla's seduction of Angela, she is in a state of ecstasy even greater than Witla's: "She threw herself back in a transport of agony and delight. `Save me from myself,' she begs him, `I am no better than any other, but I have waited so long, so long!'" Like just about all of Dreiser's novels, it is too long and at times is a hodge-podge of ideas and sensations, but it's an honest book and reveals its purposes realistically, one adult to another.

Dreiser's Sister Carrie is an urban novel. A country girl comes to the city, ends up with a slick saleman as a kept woman, but runs off with a bar manager to New York where she finds fame as an actress. Her bar manager husband falls on hard times and kills himself. Carrie's fortunes rise as Hurstwood's falls. The characters operate in the world of the city with its mystical pull. Their decisions and some chance events help guide along the plot, but this is a world of survival of the fittest. Carrie turns out to be fit, while Hurstwood does not. There are undertones of Darwin's theories. Dreiser himself occasionally appears as a voice in the work separate from the narrator and the characters. The Norton Critical Edition contains useful reference works at the back and a bibliography helpful for starting research.

Sister Carrie is undoubtedly a hallmark of American literature. Whether one reads this as a social Darwinesque glorification of American society or a scathing criticism of capitalist individualism and urban naturalism, Dreiser's work encapsulates the fabric of American society and history. Unfortunately, Dreiser has gone long underappreciated, and the sheer importance of his work has yet to be fully recognized.

Norton's edition is spectacular, compiling a significant amount of background information about Dreiser and the writing of Sister Carrie, as well as critical responses and reviews. Another edition worthy of attention is the University of Pennsylvania "unabridged" publication, regardless of one's opinions about the authenticity or genuousness of un-editing the edited (originally published) Sister Carrie.

Here is a snapshot, written by a journalist, of Chicago and New York of 110 years ago. Dreiser, according to the excellent background notes in this Norton edition, had never read "naturalist" novels before he wrote this one, but had been heavily influenced by Balzac. What we have here is social and political messages delivered in the context of the life of a young, idealistic woman who comes to Chicago to escape the boredom of a small town and to make her way in the world. I'm reminded of the book, Devil in the White City, and how it mentions all the young women who flocked to Chicago in the 1880s and 1890s and were in awe of that booming city's majesty and bustle and life. What Carrie finds is utter indifference and dullness until a man sets her up in a "love nest." What a scandal! Soon Carrie grows weary of this guy and is taken with the true tragic figure in this story, a successful married man named Hurstwood. Hurstwood falls in love with Carrie and blows his whole life up for that love. All of this is based on a true story of Dreiser's own sister, we learn from the background notes, but Dreiser has embellished this squalid little tale to give us the demise of a man in minute and realistic detail, all the while commenting on the meaning of success, material well being, and what happiness is all about. This would all be trite if it weren't framed in journalistic realism. Carrie ends up a smashing "success" in the theater, but never finds true contentment. Question: What is the good life? Answer: It comes from internal sources, not external materialistic ones. But money, nevertheless, helps along the way to give you the leisure time to even contemplate this question. Dreiser doesn't seem to address this.
The corrosive depression that Hurstwood suffers is hard to take, but the scenes of old New York hark to today's downtown New York, south of 34th Street, where you can still see the buildings Dreiser describes, and you can still see the hard-luck people as well.
This is a unique American novel, well worth the time. This edition is also well worth the wealth of information it provides.

The Dover Thrift Edition of "Short Stories" by Theodore Dreiser contains five tales by this important American writer. The copyright page notes that the stories are reprinted from Dreiser's 1918 volume "Free and Other Stories." This Dover edition includes a historically relevant 1918 introduction by Sherwood Anderson.

The stories are as follows: "Free," in which an architect, facing the serious illness of his wife, reflects on his life and the choices he has made; "Nigger Jeff," a stunning tale that opens with a reporter getting a tip on a possibly imminent lynching; "The Lost Phoebe," a moving story that follows an elderly man after the death of his wife; "The Second Chance," in which a young woman is torn between two men, one exciting but impulsive, one dull but dependable; and finally "Married," about the conflict between a musician and his wife.

Dreiser's prose style is clear and strong. I was particularly intrigued by the problematic, ironic portrayal of the journalist in "Nigger Jeff." Overall, Dreiser demonstrates that he is an insightful and compassionate observer of the human condition.

The book consists of five stories.Especially the first three are so heartrending.The Lost Phoebe;the third story,is one of the most poignant and touching stories I have ever read.Being a naturalist,Dreiser's stylie is sometimes rather intricate and you may have to struggle with ambigious sentences,but it delves into human spirit deeply.At the very beginning Sherwood Anderson gives an introduction to the stories praising Dreiser's works.I guess it is a book worth reading.

Dreiser's masterpiece, An American Tragedy is a thick novel, divided by the author into three books not just for length but for content.

The first book sets up Clyde Griffith's and his background, showing how he longed to do better for himself than what he perceived his parents had done. He wanted bright lights, money, easy living - and it seems he is heading that way after he makes a break from the family, working for a hotel. This books ends abruptly with the first physical tragedy, sending Clyde running away as he will run away from future troubles.

The second book is the heart of this novel, in my opinion. Clyde's ever desperate attempts to ingratiate himself upon his social betters, to use the Griffith's name for all it is worth, while at the same time secreting his affair with Roberta, is wrenching fiction. You both loathe his weaknesses and understand his passions. Dreiser exposes the hollowness of Clyde's views and aspirations with prose that is just as accessible as a modern novel.

The third book went a little slower for me, with near constant re-hashing of the events from the second, in particular the final episodes on the lake. However, this isn't without merit - it is needed to bring the reader to understand Clyde's state of mind, and how he comes to address these issues with the Reverend, his mother and most importantly himself.

An American Tragedy is entertaining as drama, and enlightening to the human condition. It deserves recognition as Dreiser's ultimate work.

i loved this book and for the dumbest reason, i didn't want to finish the book, only because i knew what was going to happen. i didn't think the prose was long and windy, rather i found it beautifully written. perhaps one of the most beautifully written book i've ever read..

This novel provides an engrossing view of American society in the early 1900s by following the partial rise and complete downfall of Clive Griffiths. The examination of Griffiths's life offers comments on poverty, wealth, religion, politics and morality. Griffiths is truly a flawed hero, and the reader will have trouble finding sympathy for him despite his deprived background. His greatest sin is that he is never satisfied; he always wants more. In the end he discovers that "more" comes at great cost to himself and those who care for him.

Wow, what a ponderous read! I know this was the era of yellow journalism and sensationalistic literature, but OMIGOD, this could've been reduced to 1/3 its length with the removal of superfluous adjectives!

This is the ultimate "be careful what you wish for" novel as Clyde Griffiths, trapped in a detested situation of his own making, concludes that his only path out involves murder; but when he can't go through with it in a final demonstration of his "weakness," his intended victim dies anyway by accident - only to bring down upon Clyde a conviction for "murder" and a reservation with the electric chair. Clyde's dream is the classic American one of rising above one's lowly position to a higher status, but he is frustrated at every turn. He takes a mistress, the poor factory girl Roberta Alden, at about the same time he befriends rich society girl Sondra Finchley; he learns that Roberta is pregnant just as Sondra declares her love for him. He feels trapped with Roberta with no way out, until he schemes to take her to an isolated lake and drown her. In one of the most famous scenes in American literature, Clyde is unable to complete his plans while in the boat with Roberta - only she somehow falls overboard and drowns anyway. Clyde is frozen by the spectacle of her drowning and is unable to act. A long trial ensues in which perhaps the real American tragedy is revealed: Sondra's wealth protects her from ever having to get involved with Clyde's proceedings. This long novel (perhaps too long) is fascinating in so many ways, with the ironies behind Clyde's hopes, dreams, actions, and fate so dramatically and honestly detailed by Dreiser, that, as one critic said, it's "a great work worthy of a permanent place in any list of milestones of modern fiction."

As with all Library of America editions, this edition of Dreiser's masterpiece is definitive and constructed to last a lifetime.

Book is what my husband wanted. He read it when he was a young man. Just a review.

it's a grower. it took me a long time to summon the patience to read further than the 50th page or so. it took far too long to get on with the story. when it did though, i begun to really enjoy the book. the characters are excellently portrayed, especially ernests parents. in my humble opinion, it is very well written. my only criticizm is the tendency of the narrator to go off on tangents, mainly at the beginning of the book

A slow, difficult read yet not without merit. At times scathing at others jocular yet always insightful.

The tale is of one Ernest Pontifex and 4 generations of his family beginning with his great-grandfather told by a family friend, Overton.

The reader is exposed to the hypocrisy of Victorian values inevitably consequential in the development of our protagonist and his overbearing bible thumping father.

Butler describes the twisted growth of the Pontifex family tree; one limb overshadowing the next letting it shrivel in darkness. One wonders whether the tree was planted outside the Munster residence.

At times I couldn't help but hate Ernest's father and reel in disbelief in Ernests' naivety. These conflicting emotions make the book enjoyable.

There is nothing remarkable about the literary style of Butler's book; it reads like a million and a half other 19th century British novels. What distinguishes "The Way of All Flesh", however, is its honest and at times funny portrayal of Victorian society. With great wit, Butler's narrator, Overton, and main character, Ernest, expose the stuffy, staid, hypermannered, insipid Victorian middle-class mindset.

What is especially nice is that Butler doesn't take too many cheap shots. The characters here are very well-drawn. Ernest's father, Theobald, though clearly representing all that Butler seeks to skewer, is enough of a three-dimensional foil that I could feel some sympathy for the poor old man. (He's not evil incarnate, just a sorry product of his time.) The same goes for the rest of the supporting cast. I like the narrator's voice; it's distinctive and wry enough to be unique, but not so intrusive as to distract from the plot.

Parts of the novel are funny; parts seem to drag. I don't know that I liked the end of the novel--everything seems tied together a little too perfectly; but an explanation may be found in the fact that Butler did not edit this portion of the novel before his death.

This is a solid book. Give it a shot.

A rich, intelligent, historically informative masterpiece that tells the modern reader about the concerns, delusions, pretensions and prejudices of Englishmen of the 1700s and 1800s.

Much more than just a novel, this work offers Butler's opinions upon philosophy, child-rearing and religion. The events of the novel serve to illustrate and reinforce the points made. It is a hybrid, a novel/essay, and rare at that. More essayists should spice up their arguments by dressing them with vivid characters and a decent plot, as Butler has.

Rich in wit, satire, sarcasm, humor, insight, and not without flashes of bitterness and anger.

If you read only a hundred books in your lifetime, this would not be such a bad choice for the eightieth or eighty-first. Towers above most novels that cover this long period in history (some hundred years or so, spanning four or more generations).

The Titan is an excellent sequel that, unlike many sequels, does not require the reader to have read its prequel, The Financier. Frank Cowperwood is a still-waters-run-deep kind of central character. Our story begins with his release from prison for racketeering, his descent onto Chicago with new bride-to-be, Aileen, and a stoic determination brewing behind those blue-gray eyes that, "somebody is gonna pay for this." That somebody is first the gas companies and then the newly emerging "Elevated" light rail lines of Chicago, which he proceeds to take over. Cowperwood is an immoral man. He cheats compulsively on his wife, pays off the city council and mayor to get franchise awards, and even contrives to bribe and blackmail the Illnois governor. This is not a character we are supposed to admire, in fact few of the characters we meet--Aileen, Mrs. Carter, Hosmer Hand, or Berenice Fleming--are heroic characters in the swashbuckling sense. But Dreiser warns us that human frailties are not without struggle, that lack of conscience does not always make it easy to inflict one's will and evil-doing on others, and that, most of all, in high society, money has its limits (at least in 1914). Be prepared to have a dictionary handy when reading Titan, many words that have long fallen out of favor are used extensively, including, "peregrination," "trig," "fag," "ermine," "bacchanal" and "phatasmagoria." Titan is a terrific read that draws on the history of Chicago as a burgeoning megalopolis.

Theodore Drieser's _The Titan_ (1914), book two in the author's trilogy of the uber-American businessman, describes the "come back" of the unscrupulous yet charming financier Frank Algernon Cowperwood. _The Financier_ (1911), the first book in the series, ends with Frank Cowperwood being convicted of financial conspiracy and bribery of public officials in Philadelphia. _The Titan_ picks up with the second phase of Cowperwood's financial life. Having completed his prison sentence, Cowperwood, now in his early thirties, walks into the daylight from the Eastern District Penitentiary walls in Philadelphia with the realization that he is no longer a young man and that he must begin his life anew.

The early chapters chronicle Cowperwood's journey to Chicago and his efforts to establish a new life in a society with Aileen Butler, his mistress who becomes his second wife after he secures a divorce. With a longing to "test whether the world would trample him under foot or not," Cowperwood undertakes a long, complicated journey to emerge on top, not only of the financial world of Chicago in the 1880s but of the United States as a whole. Constitutionally, Cowperwood is, in a large measure, fit for the challenge.

First, we see Cowperwood's acumen in financial matters as he acquires a small Chicago gas company, which over time challenges for a controlling interest in public gas in Chicago. He then purchases a streetcar line in north Chicago, threatening the entrenched business oligarchs of Chicago. Suborning public officials and always finding the right people to undertake his schemes--throughout much of the book Cowperwood uses proxies to advance his business aims and remains behind the scenes--he becomes a scandalously powerful mogul. At the same time, his private affairs descend into chaos. Numerous reckless extra-marital affairs undermine his business partnerships with Chicago's elite, making former friends into deadly adversaries. The intrigues and deceptions of a Cowperwood's public and private lives are put under the microscope in hundreds of detailed pages.

Early in the novel Cowperwood seduces Rita Sohlberg, a woman married to a failed violinist, and from this relationship a pattern emerges. In urging his suit, Cowperwood argues, "Life is between individuals, Rita. You and I have very much in common. Don't you see that?" He adds, "There is so much that would complete your perfectness." The first of many affairs, Cowperwood's relationship with Rita is supported by a view of the world where the individual's needs reign supreme. The public and private identities of Cowperwood merge within this credo: one's obligation is to satisfying oneself alone.

Throughout the novel, Drieser himself, like many of the secondary characters in _The Titan_ is seduced by Cowperwood's persona and prone to forgive his faults. In the final paragraphs, the narrator attempts to explain the meaning of Cowperwood's life and his magnetism as a fulfillment of a certain personality type: "Each according to his temperament," concludes the novel.

Cowperwood shares traits with larger-than-life living figures in the business world like Donald Trump, who capture the public imagination. Frank Cowperwood is the predescessor of a number of fictional businessmen, including Charles Foster Kane (from Orson Wells' _Citizen Kane_) or Gordon Gecko (from _Wall Street_). Cowperwood embodies the mystique of the robber barrens and tycoons of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries who amassed huge fortunes, and who were both loved and hated by the public for their magnificent spoils and audacious ill-gotten gains.

Dreiser's second novel of a three book series, the first being The Financier, continues the saga of Frank Cowperwood's quest for power and wealth through the use of financial acumen found in only a relatively few individuals. While written as fiction, the novel is also a wonderful history lesson of the political structure and shenanigans employed by the political and financial mavens of that period. The characters and events of the late 19th century are brought to life through Dreiser's rich and descriptive prose. Relatively few authors are able to attain the degree of detail Dreiser devotes to his plot and characters, all the while employing word usage in such as a way as to create a virtual masterpiece.

I read Sister Carrie first. That was a GREAT book. Read "Titan" second. Not so impressed. I understand that this is the sequel to his book "The Financier". The fact that I hadn't read the Financier didn't bother me at all. Frankly, I have no intention of reading the Financier.

"Titan" is the second part of the life story of Frank Cowperwood. Cowperhood is a kind of prime-time soap opera type figure: a tycoon who can't keep it in his pants. The book is equal parts of economic machinations (which take place in the exciting world of public utilities in turn of the century Chicago) and soap opera style emotional histronics.

This was no doubt racy stuff at the turn of the centuury. Actually, it's still pretty racy stuff now. Cowperwood is a serial cheater (on his wife Aileen) and Dreiser is hardly apologetic. The fact that Cowperwood can't keep it in his pants leads him to boff (can I say that on Amazon?) the wife and daughter, respectively of two of this partners. This, in turn, sets up the the central conflict in the book betweeen Cowperwood and the "quadrumvirate" of tycoons which will stop at nothing (even advocacy of socialism) to defeat Cowperwood.

The central story line involves Cowperwood and his attempts to monopolize the street car concession in Chicago. While Titan has some great scenery and an interesting supporting cast, the book is more "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" then "Atlas Shrugged"(seriously, those are the two books this book MOST reminded me of.)

Not sure why anybody would read this, but then again, I did.

Theodore Dreiser clearly was a great writer at the beginning of the 20th Century. He, along with few others, dared challenge conventional writing styles and TD did it quite boldly. Critics have long argued about the merits of his writings - it is for the reader to decide. He is certainly heavy and dense but he had arguments he wanted to make and, rest assured, he made them with a sledgehammer.

The Titan has the same central theme as The Financier with our Mr. Cowperwood out to conquer the world of business and of women of society. The destruction brought to all is readily apparent but the realism brough to the reader, along with a wonderfully unique style of writing is worth the efforts of his works.

I rated this one star lower than The Financier but think whichever is read first is going to be the one the reader prefers. Perhaps his themes wear on one and the second time around (with a third waiting to be read, The Genius)his premise and social and economic criticisms become a bit redundant. That said, if you like one, you are going to like the other. Also, it is great to see nascent protestations of a growing industrial economy and the obvious implications in today's corporate world.