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Works and novels of the Theodore Dreiser



Dreiser began writing her first novel, Sister Carrie, in 1899 at the suggestion of a newspaper colleague. Doubleday, Page and Company published it the following year, thanks largely to the enthusiasm of that company's reader, novelist Frank Norris. But Doubleday's apprehension about the book, with its story involving a young woman kept under wraps with "immoralism" going unpunished, led the publisher to restrict advertising for the book, and as a result it sold less than 500 copies. This disappointment, coupled with the accumulation of family and marital problems, plunged Dreiser into suicidal depression, from which he was saved in 1901 by his brother, Paul Dresser, a musician. famous doctor who arranged for Theodore's treatment at a sanatorium. Dreiser regained his spirits and for the next nine years achieved considerable financial success as the editor of several women's magazines. However, he was forced to resign in 1910 due to an office scandal involving his romance with an assistant's daughter. Encouraged somewhat by the earlier reaction to Sister Carrie in England and the re-publishing of the novel in the US, Dreiser returned to writing fiction. ⁶The reception for her second novel, Jennie Gerhardt (1911), a story about a woman who submits to rich and powerful men to help support her family in need, was even more encouraging. encourage her. This was followed by the first two volumes of a tentative trilogy of novels based on the life of American shipping magnate Charles T. Yerkes, The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914). Dreiser documented his experiences traveling in Europe in A Traveler at Forty (1913). In his next great novel, The Genius (1915), he turned his own life and many love affairs into an extensive semi-autobiographical chronicle censored by the Society for the Elimination of Evil. New York. This was followed by 10 years of sustained literary activity, during which Dreiser produced an anthology of short stories, Free and Other Stories (1918); a sketch book, Twelve Men (1919); philosophical essay, Hey-Rub-a-Dub-Dub (1920); a flamboyant depiction of New York, The Color of A Great City (1923); dramatic works, including The Play of Nature and the Supernatural (1916) and The Potter's Hand (1918); and the autobiographical works A Hoosier Holiday (1916) and A Book About Myself (1922). In 1925, Dreiser's first novel in a decade, An American Tragedy, based on a famous murder case, was published. This book brought Dreiser a level of critical and commercial success that he had never achieved before and will never match. The book's extremely critical view of the American legal system also made him a champion of social reformers. He engages in various causes and slows down his literary production. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1927 produced a skeptical critique of that communist society titled Dreiser Looking at Russia (1928). Her only other major publications in the late 1920s were an earlier collection of stories and sketches, Chains (1927) and A Gallery of Women (1929), and an unsuccessful collection of poems, Mood Cadenced and Declaimed (1926). The Great Depression of the 1930s ended Dreiser's prosperity and strengthened his commitment to social activism. He reconsidered his opposition to communism and wrote the anti-capitalist Tragic America (1931). His only major literary achievement of the decade was his childhood and adolescence autobiography, Dawn (1931), one of the most outspoken self-disclosures of any poet. What great literature. In the mid to late 1930s, his growing social consciousness and interest in science converged to create a vaguely mystical philosophy.
In 1938, Dreiser moved from New York to Los Angeles with Helen Richardson, his lover since 1920. There he began marketing the film rights to his earlier works. In 1942, he belatedly took up the rewrite of The Bulwark, a novel that began in 1912. This assignment was completed in 1944, the same year he married Helen. (Sara White Dreiser died in 1942.) One of her last acts was to join the Communist Party of the United States. Helen helped him complete much of The Stoic, the long-delayed third volume of his Yerkes trilogy, in the weeks before his death. Bulwark and The Stoic were published posthumously (in 1946 and 1947, respectively). A collection of Dreiser's philosophical speculations, Notes on Life, appeared in 1974. Dreiser's first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), was a work of central importance in literature. study in the US even though its debut didn't go well. He became a beacon for later American writers who were loyal to a realistic treatment of any subject. Carrie tells the story of a pretty, rudderless little girl who arrives in a big city with vague ambitions. She is taken advantage of by men who in turn use them to become a successful Broadway actress while George Hurstwood, the married man who ran away with her, loses his life and sink into begging and then commit suicide. Sister Carrie was the first masterpiece of the American naturalism movement in a realistic presentation of the vagaries of city life and of its innocent heroine, who goes unpunished for her actions. violate his usual sexual ethics. The book's strengths include its insightful yet compassionate insight into humanity, its memorable cast of characters, and compelling storytelling. Hurstwood's emotional breakdown is a much-loved triumph of psychoanalysis. Dreiser's second novel, Jennie Gerhardt (1911), was less successful than Sister Carrie due to its heroine's lack of credibility. Based on Dreiser's recollections of her beloved mother, Jennie is seen as a plaster saint that most modern readers can hardly identify with. The novel's strengths include the harsh characteristics of social snobs and narrow-minded "religious people", as well as a deep empathy for the poor. ⁷
The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914) are the first two novels in a trilogy dealing with the careers of late 19th-century American financier and drag tycoon Charles T. Yerkes, made under fictional form as Frank Cowperwood. As Cowperwood successfully plots monopoly business coups first in Philadelphia and then Chicago, the novel's focus alternates between immoral business dealings with marriage and romantic relationships. his other love. The Financier and the Giant are prominent examples of business fiction and perhaps represent the most well documented and researched studies of high-level finance in mainstream fiction. Cowperwood, like all of Dreiser's main characters, remains unsatisfied despite most of his apparent wishes coming true. The third novel in the trilogy, The Stoic (1947), was severely weakened by Dreiser's growing less and less interested in its protagonist.
The ‘Genius’ (1915) is artistically certainly considered one among Dreiser’s least a hit novels however is despite the fact that fundamental to an know-how of his psychology. This ee-e book chronicles its autobiographical hero’s profession as an artist and his unpredictable pursuit of the appropriate female as a supply of closing fulfillment.
Dreiser’s longest novel, An American Tragedy (1925), is a complicated and compassionate account of the existence and dying of a younger antihero named Clyde Griffiths. The novel starts offevolved with Clyde’s blighted background, recounts his course to success, and culminates in his apprehension, trial, and execution for murder. The ee-e book changed into referred to as via way of means of one influential critic “the worst-written notable novel withinside the world,” however its questionable grammar and fashion are transcended via way of means of its narrative power. Dreiser’s labyrinthine speculations at the volume of Clyde’s guilt do now no longer blunt his searing indictment of materialism and the American dream of success.
Dreiser’s next-to-remaining novel, The Bulwark (1946), is the tale of a Quaker father’s unavailing war to guard his youngsters from the materialism of present day American existence. More intellectually regular than Dreiser’s in advance novels, this ee-e book additionally boasts a number of his maximum polished prose.

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