Picture of author.

Theodore Dreiser (1871–1945)

Author of Sister Carrie

156+ Works 12,847 Members 190 Reviews 35 Favorited

About the Author

Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, the twelfth of 13 children. His childhood was spent in poverty, or near poverty, and his family moved often. In spite of the constant relocations, Dreiser managed to attend school, and, with the financial aid of a sympathetic high school teacher, show more he was able to attend Indiana University. However, the need for income forced him to leave college after one year and take a job as a reporter in Chicago. Over the next 10 years, Dreiser held a variety of newspaper jobs in Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and finally New York. He published his first novel, Sister Carrie in 1900, but because the publisher's wife considered its language and subject matter too "strong", it was barely advertised and went almost unnoticed. Today it is regarded as one of Dreiser's best works. It is the story of Carrie, a young woman from the Midwest, who manages to rise to fame and fortune on the strength of her personality and ambition, through her acting talent, and via her relationships with various men. Much of the book's controversy came from the fact that it portrayed a young woman who engages in sexual relationships without suffering the poverty and social downfall that were supposed to be the "punishment" for such "sin." Dreiser's reputation has increased instrumentally over the years. His best book and first popular success, An American Tragedy (1925), is now considered a major American novel, and his other works are widely taught in college courses. Like Sister Carrie, An American Tragedy also tells the story of an ambitious young person from the Midwest. In this case, however, the novel's hero is a man who is brought to ruin because of a horrible action he commits - he murders a poor young woman whom he has gotten pregnant, but whom he wants to discard in favor of a wealthy young woman who represents luxury and social advancement. As Dreiser portrays him, the young man is a victim of an economic system that torments so many with their lack of privilege and power and temps them to unspeakable acts. Dreiser is also known for the Coperwood Trilogy - The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and the posthumously published The Store (1947). Collectively the three books paint the portrait of a brilliant and ruthless "financial buccaneer." Dreiser is associated with Naturalism, a writing style that also includes French novelist Emile Zola. Naturalism seeks to portray all the social forces that shape the lives of the characters, usually conveying a sense of the inevitable doom that these forces must eventually bring about. Despite this apparent pessimism, Dreiser had faith in socialism as a solution to what he saw as the economic injustices of American capitalism. His socialist views were reinforced by a trip to the newly socialist Soviet Union, and in fact, Dreiser is still widely read in that country. There, as here, he is seen as a powerful chronicler of the injustices and ambitions of his time. Dreiser officially joined the Communist Party shortly before his death in 1945. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)

Series

Works by Theodore Dreiser

Sister Carrie (1900) — Author — 4,148 copies, 64 reviews
An American Tragedy (1925) 4,084 copies, 50 reviews
Sister Carrie: The Unexpurgated Edition (1981) 620 copies, 6 reviews
The Financier (1912) 559 copies, 17 reviews
Jennie Gerhardt (1911) 433 copies, 7 reviews
The Titan (1914) 313 copies, 7 reviews
Sister Carrie / Jennie Gerhardt / Twelve Men (1987) — Author — 279 copies, 2 reviews
The Genius (1915) 166 copies, 7 reviews
The Bulwark (1946) 141 copies, 1 review
The Best Short Stories of Theodore Dreiser (1947) 107 copies, 1 review
The Stoic (1947) 104 copies, 2 reviews
Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions) (1994) 100 copies, 1 review
Twelve Men (1998) 65 copies
A Hoosier Holiday (1997) — Author — 52 copies, 1 review
Theodore Dreiser Presents The Living Thoughts of Thoreau (2010) — Editor, some editions — 38 copies
The Color of a Great City (1996) 29 copies
Free and Other Stories (1971) 28 copies
The Hand of the Potter (1918) 22 copies
A Gallery of Women (complete) (1929) 18 copies, 1 review
A Traveler at Forty (2005) 16 copies, 1 review
Trilogy of Desire (1972) 14 copies
Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields (1970) — Editor, some editions — 12 copies
A Book About Myself (2009) 10 copies
Tragic America (1931) 8 copies
Phantom Gold (1992) — Author — 7 copies
The Lost Phoebe (2007) — Author — 7 copies
Dreiser Looks At Russia (1928) 5 copies
A Sister Carrie Portfolio (1985) 4 copies
Essays and Articles (1951) 3 copies
The American spectator year book (1934) — Editor — 3 copies
Nigger Jeff (1991) 3 copies
Epitaph : a poem (1975) 3 copies
Racconti 3 copies
Political writings (2011) 3 copies
Valik novelle 3 copies
My city (1929) 3 copies, 1 review
Meravigliosa Chicago (2015) 2 copies
The Hand (2011) 2 copies
Free 2 copies
Carolina 2 copies
Un caso di coscienza (2000) 2 copies
Journalism (1988) 2 copies
Fine furniture (1973) 2 copies
America is Worth Saving (1941) 2 copies
Genie (2015) 1 copy
Der Titan 1 copy
Finančník 1 copy
Tytan 1 copy
Titán 1 copy
The genius (2015) 1 copy
the bulward 1 copy
the titan 1 copy
the genius 1 copy
EL GENIO 1 copy
A Traveler at Forty (2016) 1 copy
A SOLTEIRA 1 copy
Die besten Novellen (1995) 1 copy
Married 1 copy
Zora 1 copy
Titans 1 copy
Libero 1 copy
Notes on Life (1974) 1 copy

Associated Works

Fifty Great American Short Stories (1965) — Contributor — 453 copies, 3 reviews
American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau (2008) — Contributor — 424 copies, 1 review
Americans in Paris: A Literary Anthology (2004) — Contributor — 306 copies, 3 reviews
Writing New York: A Literary Anthology (1998) — Contributor — 287 copies, 4 reviews
The Treasury of American Short Stories (1981) — Contributor — 270 copies, 1 review
The Arbor House Treasury of Horror and the Supernatural (1981) — Contributor — 202 copies, 3 reviews
100 Eternal Masterpieces of Literature - volume 1 (2017) — Contributor — 163 copies
An Anthology of Famous American Stories (1953) — Contributor — 145 copies, 1 review
An American Album: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Harper's Magazine (2000) — Contributor — 140 copies, 1 review
The Rise of Silas Lapham [Norton Critical Edition] (1885) — Contributor — 103 copies
The American Mercury Reader (1979) — Contributor — 81 copies, 1 review
The Mammoth Book of Twentieth-Century Ghost Stories (1998) — Contributor — 77 copies
Bedside Book of Famous American Stories (1936) — Contributor — 71 copies
The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Concise Edition (2003) — Contributor — 69 copies, 1 review
A Place in the Sun [1951 film] (1951) — Novel — 67 copies
Rod Serling’s Devils and Demons (1967) — Contributor — 67 copies
The Experience of the American Woman (1978) — Contributor — 48 copies
Fifty Best American Short Stories 1915-1965 (1965) — Contributor — 36 copies, 1 review
Lapham's Quarterly - Lines of Work: Volume IV, Number 2, Spring 2011 (2011) — Contributor — 30 copies, 2 reviews
50 Best American Short Stories 1915-1939 (2013) — Contributor — 28 copies
American short stories, 1820 to the present (1952) — Contributor — 26 copies
Ebony and Ivory (1923) — Preface, some editions — 20 copies
Lilith : a dramatic poem (2008) — Introduction, some editions — 17 copies
Carrie [1952 film] (2005) — Original novel — 12 copies
The Banned Books Compendium: 32 Classic Forbidden Books — Contributor — 10 copies, 8 reviews
The Great Modern American Stories: An Anthology (1920) — Contributor — 10 copies
Uncanny Tales 3 (1975) — Contributor — 9 copies
ESSENTIAL COLLECTION OF CLASSIC BANNED BOOKS — Contributor — 9 copies
Oh Excellent Air Bag: Under the Influence of Nitrous Oxide, 1799-1920 (2016) — Contributor — 7 copies, 1 review
Our Lives: American Labor Stories — Contributor — 6 copies
Forced Labor in the United States (1971) — Introduction, some editions — 6 copies
Representative American Short Stories — Contributor — 5 copies, 1 review
1935 Essay Annual — Contributor — 4 copies
My Gal Sal [1942 film] (1942) — Writer — 3 copies
Modern Short Stories — Contributor — 3 copies
The songs of Paul Dresser — Introduction, some editions — 3 copies
American Short Stories (1978) — Contributor — 3 copies, 1 review
Marriage: Short Stories of Married Life (1923) — Contributor — 2 copies
Modern American short stories (1963) — Contributor — 1 copy

Tagged

1001 (45) 1001 books (46) 19th century (79) 20th century (216) 20th century literature (47) America (56) American (278) American fiction (93) American literature (606) anthology (273) Chicago (131) classic (248) classic fiction (54) classic literature (52) classics (319) Dreiser (75) ebook (73) essays (94) fiction (1,865) history (68) horror (70) Kindle (74) Library of America (194) literature (459) LOA (67) murder (68) naturalism (87) New York (133) New York City (61) non-fiction (94) novel (383) own (75) paperback (52) read (110) short stories (298) Theodore Dreiser (68) to-read (738) unread (123) US literature (46) USA (73)

Common Knowledge

Members

Discussions

Theodore Dreiser in George Macy devotees (July 2023)
1914: Dreiser - The Titan in Literary Centennials (November 2015)

Reviews

Reason read: Reading 1001, TBR takedown, TIOLI, Chicago
This has been on the shelf for awhile. It was published in 1900 and is an example of "naturalism" or realism. The story is of a country girl who flees rural life, going to Chicago but not finding work. She falls into a relationship of mistress to a single man and then runs to Canada and New York with married man. Carrie is eventually successful on the stage but comes to realize that happiness is not in Success. The characters in Dreisser's book can succeed without a firm moral code but there is also examples where not having a moral code does lead to ruin in the case of another. It has been called the "greatest urban novel". It was #33 on the Modern Library list of 100 best English novels of 20th century (1998).; I don't particularly like the novels title. Not sure if I think it is a great novel but perhaps it did contribute to the development of the novel with its naturalism/realism on the eve of The Victorian novel.… (more)
½
 
Flagged
Kristelh | 63 other reviews | Dec 13, 2024 |
I wish this book wasn't as relevant as it was 100 years ago... but here we are.
 
Flagged
alicatrasi | 49 other reviews | Nov 28, 2024 |
Sister Carrie, written at the turn of the 20th century and considered one of the "great American novels," also has an infamous history of censorship which is fascinating in its own right. I chose to read the free online version of the restored Pennsylvania edition. I understand that the "unexpurgated edition" is based off of that one.

On the surface, the novel is the story of Caroline Meeber, who moves from rural Wisconsin to Chicago in hopes of seeking her fortune. Unhappy with her work prospects due to her lack of experience and the less-than-enthusiastic welcome she gets from her sister and brother-in-law, Carrie is tempted away from a hand-to-mouth existence by Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman who buys her nice clothes and gets her to live with him. Eventually she realizes the shallowness of Drouet's personality and casts in her lot with George Hurstwood, a (unbeknownst to her) married man. This sets them on a path that leads to Carrie's stardom as an actress and Hurstwood's very steep downfall.

The book is dense and not easy to get through, but in the end I did like it. There are two things in particular that I noticed:

1. It is a major commentary on American society. Our society is based around the idea that if we could just have more money, fame, a different lover, or a bigger place to live, we would be happier. Ultimately, Carrie is not happy with her money and fame, and chasing her eventually leads Hurstwood to indifference and suicide. Drouet continues to be his oblivious self, but arguably he is never satisfied either--he can never have meaningful relationships with anyone. This passage in Chapter 49 in which Carrie is talking with Bob Ames, a cousin of her friend Mrs. Vance, sums up this thesis:

"Your happiness is within yourself wholly if you will only believe it," he went on. "When I was quite young I felt as if I were ill-used because other boys were dressed better than I was, were more sprightly with the girls than I, and I grieved and grieved, but now I'm over that. I have found out that everyone is more or less dissatisfied. No one has exactly what his heart wishes."

"Not anybody?" she asked.

"No," he said.

Carrie looked wistfully away.

"It comes down to this," he went on. "If you have powers, cultivate them. The work of doing it will bring you as much satisfaction as you will ever get. The huzzas of the public don't mean anything. That's the aftermath--you've been paid and satisfied if you are not selfish and greedy long before that reaches you."


2. It is not necessarily a work about morality. The author, Dreiser, does mention evil in it, but his characters are not deliberately evil--they suffer because they are driven by their whims and lack understanding of what their actions do to those around them. One might argue anyway that this is a better definition of sin than the overly simplistic list of "lying/cheating/stealing." But I still don't think Dreiser was trying to teach morality in this story--just depict in a naturalistic way that people tend to do what's in their own best interests and that "fate" can lead them in different directions. He sums this up in a rather heavy-handed passage:

Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their action should concern them. They have no conception of the necessity of a well-organized society wherein all shall accept a certain quota of responsibility and all realize a reasonable amount of happiness. They think only of themselves because they have not yet been taught to think of society. For them pain and necessity are the great taskmasters. Laws are but the fences which circumscribe the sphere of their operations. When, after error, pain falls as a lash, they do not comprehend that their suffering is due to misbehavior. Many such an individual is so lashed by necessity and law that he falls fainting to the ground, dies hungry in the gutter or rotting in the jail and it never once flashes across his mind that he has been lashed only in so far as he has persisted in attempting to trespass the boundaries which necessity sets. A prisoner of fate, held enchained for his own delight, he does not know that the walls are tall, that the sentinels of life are forever pacing, musket in hand. He cannot perceive that all joy is within and not without. He must be for scaling the bounds of society, for overpowering the sentinel. When we hear the cries of the individual strung up by the thumbs, when we hear the ominous shot which marks the end of another victim who has thought to break loose, we may be sure that in another instance life has been misunderstood--we may be sure that society has been struggled against until death alone would stop the individual from contention and evil.

From what I hear, the original edited edition of the book removed most of the philosophy from it, made Carrie a mindless, untalented fool, and removed most of the sexual references (which I had trouble detecting anyway, but I guess by early 20th century standards they would have been blatant). Carrie doesn't fret over moving in with Drouet, Drouet doesn't pursue other ladies while living with her, and Hurstwood doesn't frequent prostitutes before he leaves his wife. In other words, the characters were significantly changed.

I enjoyed this book for the depth and the tragedy of it, but it was a very heavy read. I can see after reading the historical notes included on the website that the restored edition is superior to what was originally published and probably closer to what Dreiser intended, although I would have switched the final two chapters--49 reads like an ending, and 50 like an afterthought.

And now, my only remaining question is... whatever happened to Carrie's parents? She goes to live with her sister in Chicago, but I don't remember the book even once mentioning her contacting her parents, thinking about them, or what they thought of her leaving. In fact, I don't think it mentions her parents at all. Either she had an awful relationship with them, or she was just so self-absorbed that she didn't care if her mother was worried sick about her.
… (more)
 
Flagged
word.owl | 5 other reviews | Nov 12, 2024 |
Every hour of it at Golgotha!

The words used to describe what the Eastern Griffiths felt during Clyde's trial and the same words that describe how I felt from the beginning to end of this book.

Theodore Dreiser introduces the character Clyde in a manner that is sympathetic. The first male child of staunch christian missionaries, forced to walk the streets and sing with his family as they preached.

The first two parts of the book are spent fully describing the scenes and state Clyde Griffiths finds himself in, and Mr. Dreiser takes the reader step by excruciating step of all the misteps that Clyde Griffiths takes in his ambitious quest for money, power, beauty and wealthy and the tragic incident that leads to the downfall that was imminent from the beginning.

The book is not short of imperfections. For one it is perhaps 400 pages more than it ought to have been. Too repetitive and wordy.

Howeveer, the author manages to toy with the reader's emotions in a way that I love yet hate at the same time. Building up sympathy and love for Clyde who commits a murder, which was plotted and thus arouses disgust yet Mr. Dreiser still builds up sympathy for him in a cruel and conflicting manner as we are taken to "Golgotha" and lashed during Clyde's trial and the book's eventual end. Yet I absolutely loved the hell that Dreiser put me through in a masochistic way, through and through an incredible book and one od the best I have read thus far!
… (more)
1 vote
Flagged
raulbimenyimana | 49 other reviews | Oct 13, 2024 |

Lists

Read (1)
1920s (1)
AP Lit (2)
My TBR (1)

Awards

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

H. L. Mencken Introduction

Statistics

Works
156
Also by
59
Members
12,847
Popularity
#1,823
Rating
3.8
Reviews
190
ISBNs
829
Languages
21
Favorited
35

Charts & Graphs