Product Description
Twelve Men is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Theodore Dreiser is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Theodore Dreiser then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

twelve men
this book is great. dreiser tells the life of twelve men, whom all he knew except for one or two people. this book will keep u hooked ... Read more

Product Description
This title has fewer than 24 printed text pages. Rats in the Belfry is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by John York Cabot is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of John York Cabot then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Not "high quality."
Whatever you do, don't order these "High Quality Paperbacks;" they are anything but.They are printed on 8.5 x 11 paper, so they are the size of a dictionary.The print looks like it was done on a typewriter.The typesetting is sloppy; sometimes a single sentence or a paragraph in the middle of the page. These look like someone did them on a desktop printer.

The Adulterated Desire of Genius
The "Genius" is the most directly personal of Theodore Dreiser's novels. It is also his most shocking, on account of the sexual candor its audience will encounter. Its story traces the career of Eugene Witla, a talented young artist from a small Midwest town. Seeking fulfillment in art and life he takes his ambitions first to Chicago and later to New York. Eugene's artistic prowess undertakes different guises throughout his climb unto the financial world and the creative resources he aptly taps into while gaining professional stock in the world of advertising and mass-circulation magazines. He will also cavort about these cities with an erotic hunger and pecuniary ambition that speaks by means of an expression diffracted across the spectrum of varied hues. These are different manifestation of a single force that breeds desire within Eugene. A philosophical take as much as it is a psychological claim. The language Dreiser adopted in the writing of this novel is more vital and less stodgy than the more commonly read efforts Dreiser is renowned for such as Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. These pages have a genius that is pandering to the commercial strain of worldly affairs, a theme rehashed in The Financer, but here treated with undiminished assertiveness and a joyous explosiveness rather than tragic adumbration, although one should never expect such aloofness and alienation to be omitted from any of Dreiser's writings. Dreiser insists that the artists in the new American landscape, the artist of unprivileged birth, the artist of a competitive genius that hungers for financial success in spite of claims to do otherwise is involved in a conflict that is best dramatized in this resounding narrative. Dreiser wrote that "it is difficult to indicate to those who have never come out of poverty into luxury or out of comparative uncouthness into refinement, the veil or spell which the latter comes eventually to cast over the inexperienced mind, coloring the world anew. Life is apparently striving, constantly, to perfect its illusion and to create spells. There are, as a matter of fact, nothing but these outside that ultimate substance or principle which underlies it all. To those who come out of harmony, harmony is a spell, and to those who have come out of poverty, luxury is a dream of delight."
Furthermore Eugene will swing between two diverging ideological themes within his love affairs, either as an investment of his intellectual and spiritual sensuality or as a delightful dividend of achievements in other fields. He becomes conscious that the purity is an ideal worth alluding to but hardly unadulterated by narcissistic interests. Eugene rhapsodies on the nature of desire and meticulously scrutinizes his motives, only to rationalize a pathos he is the product of, as much as its genius.

The adulterated desire of genius
The "Genius" is the most directly personal of Theodore Dreiser's novels. It is also his most shocking, on account of the sexual candor its audience will encounter. Its story traces the career of Eugene Witla, a talented young artist from a small Midwest town. Seeking fulfillment in art and life he takes his ambitions first to Chicago and later to New York. Eugene's artistic prowess undertakes different guises throughout his climb unto the financial world and the creative resources he aptly taps into while gaining professional stock in the world of advertising and mass-circulation magazines. He will also cavort about these cities with an erotic hunger and pecuniary ambition that speaks by means of an expression diffracted across the spectrum of varied hues. These are different manifestation of a single force that breeds desire within Eugene. A philosophical take as much as it is a psychological claim. The language Dreiser adopted in the writing of this novel is more vital and less stodgy than the more commonly read efforts Dreiser is renowned for such as Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. These pages have a genius that is pandering to the commercial strain of worldly affairs, a theme rehashed in The Financer, but here treated with undiminished assertiveness and a joyous explosiveness rather than tragic adumbration, although one should never expect such aloofness and alienation to be omitted from any of Dreiser's writings. Dreiser insists that the artists in the new American landscape, the artist of unprivileged birth, the artist of a competitive genius that hungers for financial success in spite of claims to do otherwise is involved in a conflict that is best dramatized in this resounding narrative. Dreiser wrote that "it is difficult to indicate to those who have never come out of poverty into luxury or out of comparative uncouthness into refinement, the veil or spell which the latter comes eventually to cast over the inexperienced mind, coloring the world anew. Life is apparently striving, constantly, to perfect its illusion and to create spells. There are, as a matter of fact, nothing but these outside that ultimate substance or principle which underlies it all. To those who come out of harmony, harmony is a spell, and to those who have come out of poverty, luxury is a dream of delight."
Furthermore, Eugene will swing between two diverging ideological themes within his love affairs, either as an investment of his intellectual and spiritual sensuality or as a delightful dividend of achievements in other fields. He becomes conscious that the purity is an ideal worth alluding to but hardly unadulterated by narcissistic interests. Eugene rhapsodies on the nature of desire and meticulously scrutinizes his motives, only to rationalize a pathos he is the product of, as much as its genius.

His most autobiographical novel - and his own favorite
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.

Semi-autobiographical Dreiser Novel
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. ... Read more

Product Description
This Norton Critical Edition features the 1900 Doubleday Page text of the novel. "Backgrounds and Sources" reprints excerpts from Dreiser's autobiographies, and a documentary account, drawn largely from Dreiser's correspondence with Frank Norris, Arthur Henry, Walter H.Page and F.N.Doubleday, discusses the supposed "suppression" of Sister Carrie by its first publisher. "Criticism" includes twelve essays that seek to identify Dreiser's literary naturalism in "Sister Carrie", the sources of fictional strength in the novel and the novel's relationship to American life. New to the second edition are essays by Ellen Moers, Robert Penn Warren, Philip Fisher, Robert Shulman and Donald Pizer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Masterpiece
Sister Carrie is a masterpiece of American fiction. I have read
it twice and it is as fresh as if it was written yesterday. The
quintessential American drive for upward and better is captured
in the character of Carrie. A great companion to Edith Wharton's
"The House of Mirth". I will NEVER tire of reading Sister Carrie!!!

Love it!
I wish I would have read this book when I was eighteen or even seventeen. It has wonderful insight into the motives of both men and women when entering into relationships, which, for the naturalist, seem to be driven by a completely selfish and blinding need for self-gratification. I guess Americans should be able to grasp this theory pretty well.

An essential read
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.

History Repeats Itself
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.

Determinism at work: Carrie rises; Hurstwood falls
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 managerhusband falls on hard times and kills himself. Carrie's fortunes rise asHurstwood's falls. The characters operate in the world of the city with itsmystical pull. Their decisions and some chance events help guide along theplot, but this is a world of survival of the fittest. Carrie turns out tobe fit, while Hurstwood does not. There are undertones of Darwin'stheories. Dreiser himself occasionally appears as a voice in the workseparate from the narrator and the characters. The Norton Critical Editioncontains useful reference works at the back and a bibliography helpful forstarting research. ... Read more

Product Description
An American Masterpiece

Clyde Griffiths finds his social-climbing aspirations and love for a rich and beautiful debutante threatened when his lower-class pregnant girlfriend gives him an ultimatum. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (111)

important 20th century book
Impressive book who a few years ago inspired Woody Allen for his movie Match Point; although it may not strike you as you read it the general plot is the same. Knowing that Dreiser himself was inspired by Crime and Chatiment, from who you know........well it certainly makes you want to read it, don't it?

An American Masterpiece
Some things the literary reader should look for in reading and studying An American Tragedy are as follows:

a. The lessons Clyde takes away from Esta's pregnancy seem to have no bearing on his lack of empathy for Roberta once she conceives. He understands the social stigma attached to a child out of wedlock, but he never learned to accept responsibility for his conduct out of those circumstances. As Dreiser indicates just before the Lycurgus section of the novel opens, Clyde "never learns to grow up".

b. In his relationship with Hortense, particularly towards its close when she wants that coat from the merchant, (location 2181) we see that Clyde learns to associate desire, if not real love for another, with material augmentation, as Hortense herself has long been there. The same thing occurs later with Sondra Finchley, who is perhaps intentionally given the name of a flitting little bird-- and this is as much the dark side of the American Success as is its inability to rectify the hardship of poverty in a capitalist society. This may not be precisely what draws him to Roberta, but he winds up defining his relationship, as she comes to realize his presents to her doesn't mean she has his affection.

c. The unethical conduct of Mason's subordinates is dated, by today's standards, but it does unfairly impact the justice that Clyde receives, which might have gone to life imprisonment had the evidence not been tainted and the anti-Mason juror pressured. Dreiser is also very good at looking at the ripple effect of Clyde's crime on everyone else, including Sondra and both branches of the Griffiths family-- but despite his *evil* as the Reverend McMillan sees it, Dreiser never loses sight of Clyde's humanity, and the hardship that shapes him, and this is a very difficult thing to do in a literary work, and as such carries a powerful impact, maybe even more so than Sister Carrie. I cannot think of any thriller that offers us such an interior sympathy for its villains, except for an author like Simenon, but the French are willing to take chances with formula that most American franchise authors will not; in that sense Dreiser's work is not only still relevant but a seminal achievement. [I apologize for keeping Whispernet busy with this file; I want the room but have many things I'd like to say about the novel, although I am not ready to launch into a critical essay!]

Review posted on The Literate Man [...] on July 19, 2010
Don't you all miss the days when it seemed that every great artist was an unabashed socialist? Ok, so maybe I don't actually remember those days at all, but I sometimes feel like I lived for brief periods in the dark worlds of corrupt American capitalism painted by Dreiser, Steinbeck, and even Hemingway (oh, heck, let's through Kerouac in there too), among many others. Don't you? I have this purely romanticized vision of the turn of the twentieth century and the years that followed as a battleground of ideologies when it seemed like a system that valued human relationships (as opposed to supply and demand) might actually raise the human race to another evolutionary level. Of course, the intervening years have largely proven that dream to be just that--a dream--devoid of any grounding in human nature. But I like to reminisce in any case. Ah, those were the (completely nonexistent) days ...

No one, and I mean no one, is better at painting a straightforward tale of the evil influences of American capitalism than Theodore Dreiser. He's like the Brothers Grimm of the American working classes or like the Dr. Suess of anti-capitalist ideology--except that the Cat in the Hat wears a bushy mustache and carries a hammer and sickle. Though 25 years separate them, Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925) are almost mirror images of each other as they treat the effect of unbridled American ambition on first women and then men, who grow up in Darwinistic America devoid (individually or collectively) of any strong moral compass. The fact that Dreiser's novels continue to be relevant in the twenty-first century is a testament to his ability to find universal and enduring themes.

An American Tragedy was based upon well-publicized actual events in upstate New York in 1906. Here's the short, short version of the story: upwardly-mobile boy from a solid family takes advantage of country girl; aristocratic third-party female then expresses interest in boy; boy dumps country girl for a chance at the good life; but country girl is pregnant; boy thinks, "what to do ... I know ... murder," or is it? Maybe it was just an accident.I will say that in the actual events, the boy was convicted of murder and executed by electric chair. But you'll have to read the book itself to find out what happens to his on-page persona, Clyde Griffiths.

This is one of a very few books that I have re-read over the course of my life. And usually I find that my understanding of the story has changed in the interim. Not so here. Dreiser is forever an idealist and an advocate for the redemptive power of empathy. Though his dream seems further away now than ever, it is still undeniably enjoyable to inhabit that world for a week or two. Give it a shot ...

Poor Kindle version
My review comments are primarily about the electronic transfer of this novel.There are no paragraph indents, many misspellings, and overall poor copy editing, particularly near the end.

Regarding the novel itself, I can only imagine what this story would have been like in the hands of a more competent writer.It is a testament to the fundamental bones of this story that, in spite of Dreiser's almost singular heavy-handedness, the moral elements shine through the leadenness of Dreiser's language.No doubt shocking in its day, the contemporary reader cannot help but think, "get on with it already," but Dreiser doesn't get on.

Unforgettable
I read this book for my own enjoyment many decades ago and have never forgotten it.I was reading for months and months, and the more I read, the more compelling it became, as tho I were being sucked deeper and deeper into an immense oceanic whirlpool.Dreiser's masterpiece slowly became more real than my life, or seemed to.
I remember reading it in the laundromat when a Princeton student noticed me and jokingly said "oh, do you have to read that thing?""No," I replied, "I'm reading it for myself and it's wonderful!"End of conversation.
But I like Wagnernerian opera too, so it would seem that I can handle length better than many people who prefer an artistic "quickie." ... Read more

Product Description
Carrie Meeber leaves her home in rural Wisconsin for big-city life in Chicago, and faces a series of struggles -- professional, moral, and romantic -- before achieving success in the New York theater scene.

THIS ENRICHED CLASSIC EDITION INCLUDES:

• A concise introduction that gives the reader important
• background information
• A chronology of the author's life and work
• A timeline of significant events that provides the book's
• historical context
• An outline of key themes and plot points to guide the reader's
• own interpretations
• Detailed explanatory notes
• Critical analysis, including contemporary and modern
• perspectives on the work
• Discussion questions to promote lively classroom and book
• group interaction
• A list of recommended related books and films to broaden
• the reader's experience

Customer Reviews (5)

Favorite book
This is my all time favorite book. It is compelling and vividly written that takes you to a place you do not want to leave. Timeless, albeit a bit morose, it encapsulates the characters as if they were next door neighbors. An American classic which displays true ability of much beloved novelist. Highly recommend. Reread it if it has been awhile and marvel at Dreischer's genius.

Totally great inspirational story!
This is one book I keep re-reading over the years. As a young woman in Eastern Europe I was inspired by this novel to come to America to pursue my dreams. It changed my life. Have to give credit to Carrie! I see a lot of her in me. Read it and be inspired!

As advertised
The book arrived in a timely manner in new/like new condition, exactly as advertised. I would use this vendor again. Thanks.

Probably 5+ stars [33]
Theodore Dreiser may tender a curve ball to readers by naming the book Sister Carrie, as the eponymous character is not necessarily the focal point of this novel. I truly read this as a great novel about the fatal character who married her.

Written at the end of the 19th century, the book predates so many things: truly high rise New York or Chicago, and more importantly the American embracing of Freudian concepts of psychoanalysis and treatment of depression.

Carrie enters the book as a young naive girl who sees the big city - 500,000 people - in Chicago. Like other characters of this great time, the city's harsh backdrop can stifle youth and decay spirit. Unlike Upton Sinclair's Jurgis Rudkus of The Jungle, Carrie quickly escapes the demeaning and devouring sweat shops of the windy city.How? Basically by being the feminine sex. And, like no good girl from the midwest would do - she is from Wisconsin - she boards with dapper Charles Drouet.Her rooming relationship is not like the 21st or 22nd century girl who "boards", but the cohabitation under the guise of false marriage would easily amount to great scandal within the community - hence Drouet and Carrie must keep their false marriage a secret unknown by anyone.

Drouet is then confronted by the married George Hurstwood, who basically gives up a very comfortable life, wife and family in Chicago for Carrie.A greater sacrifice than he can manage.He first runs away with Carrie to Montreal, marries her before his own divorce is complete, adopts a false surname for the marriage, and moves with Carrie to New York where he finds work easily, but at a job which provides much less income, reward or prestige. And, during these times, Carrie who never enjoyed fruits of comfort, has no complaints.

It is then that the lives of simple Carrie and sophisticated George furnicularly move - she ascends slowly while depression catches Hurstwood by surprise and slowly eats away at his esteem until she becomes the breadwinner and he the lost soul.Many aspects of this relationship remind me of F. Scott Fitzgerald's tragic tale about Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night.Very poignant difference between these great American novels is 34 years in time.Fitzgerald, who wrote when the concepts of Freud and psychoanalysis had well matured for a much clearer understanding, incorporates the same in great detail to treat a mental illness similar to that of Hurstwood.

Amateurs of psychology, after reading this book, can clearly assert that Hurstwood's demise is classically caused by severe depression - he hides in his apartment, agoraphobic to a certain extent, he has an appetite reduction and he has a clear loss of hygiene.He may not be Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but his disease is equally deadly.

Reading a book of this size often can be difficult. But, this is not a book often read. Dreiser is a great story teller. And, his loyal socialist emotions erupt from the pages as he, like Sinclair, boldly depicts the tremendously unequal worlds of large metropolitan areas of America at this time.And, as displayed in these pages, Dreiser artistically shows how the inequality can be within the same family, within the marriage, within the nucleus of the family fabric.

In these hard times more than one hundred years later, we are experiencing many of the problemslived by these characters.Dreiser or Sinclair and their peers thought their literature would provide lessons to prevent our repeating this or these mistake(s). Maybe they did.Or, maybe the tough times are inevitable.But, whether in the late 19th century or early 21st century, these are trying times which can deliver great literature. I can only hope a silver lining of similarly great literature arises from the ashes of our economically strained circumstances.

Sister Carrie: Beauty and the Beast tale in old Chicago and New York
Sister Carrie was published in 1900 becoming a bestseller and garnering literary fame for Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945). Dreiser was a Midwesterner born to German parents in Terre Haute, Indiana. He tried his hand at many ventures becoming a journalist and eventually a famous novelist known for this book, "Jennie Gerhardt," "The Financier", "The Pit", "The Genius" and his magnum opus of 1925 "An American Tragedy" (upon which the movie "A Place in the Sun" was based).
Sister Carrie tells the story of Carrie an innocent young girl from the boondocks of Wisconsin. She travels to Chicago to live with her sister. Carrie finds work in several lowpaying and demeaning jobs. She hates life with her working class sister, her husband and child. Carrie earlier met the smooth talking salesman Drouet on the train to Chicago. She becomes his mistress. She acts in an amateur theatrical production meeting the bartender Hurstwood who falls in love with her.
One night Hurtswood steals money from the business where he has been employed for fifteen years. He hates his cold shallow wife but knows he will miss his two grown children. Hurstwood persuades Carrie to join him as they flee to Montreal and New York City. Carrie does not know he stole the money. They live together in small apartments in New Yor becoming more miserable as time passes. Hurstwood fails to get any work. He sends back to Chicago most of the money he has stolen. Carrie and Hurstwood struggle to survive in the huge jungle of New York during its Gilded Age.
Carrie leaves Hurstwood becoming a famous and rich actress. Hurstwood becomes a bum who commits suicide by turning on the gas in a flophouse bedroom. A reversal of fortune and power has occurred. Carrie has become a powerful, beautiful and wealthy woman while the upper middle class Hurstwood die. The former manager dies in disgrace forgotten by all including his wealthy family.
Drouet resurfaces in New York but Carrie will have nothing to do with this slick ladies man. Carrie has learned how to survive in a dog eat dog survival of the fittest Darwinian universe. Dreiser writes in a style called naturalism which depicts life as it is lived free of rose colored glasses.
Dreiser's book is long moving slowly for 21st century eyes. This is especially true in the parts dealing with Carrie's Chicago life of being a kept woman to Drouet and a sexual object of the smitten Hurstwood. The pace picks up in the New York half of the book. The searing depiction of Hurstwood's decline and death make fascinating reading to those who are not acquainted with dire poverty in a large urban setting.
What does "sister" mean in the title? Carrie is the sister of the Chicago sibling whose home she enters upon her first day in Chicago. She is a sister of mercy to Hurstwood during his slow decline even though she finally abandons him. What about the name "Carrie"? She is carried along in the stream of life with no great depth of character though she is not dumb. Carrie is a survivor who grows and triumphs over the hazards of men, the theatrical life and poverty. This is a good book to introduce the reader to one of America's best known authors. ... Read more

Product Description
Now an abridged edition of two highly acclaimed volumes Praise for Theodore Dreiser: At the Gates of the City, 1871–1907 "Dreiser’s life has never been more vividly told. Lingeman’s definitive book reveals the tough, uncompromising impulse that led Dreiser, disdaining style, to slug with such knockout power." —Studs Terkel "Scrupulously, massively—devotedly—constructed; everything is in it. And it is immaculately rendered." —Cynthia Ozick The New York Times Book Review "An intimate and revealing portrait…a solid, honorable and perceptive book." —Jonathan Yardley The Washington Post Book World "A remarkable book packed with vivid reminiscences, personal anecdotes and thorough research that brings Dreiser’s prodigious, moving story, his turbulent era and the man himself truly alive." —Don Skiles San Francisco Chronicle Praise for Theodore Dreiser: An American Journey, 1908–1945 Chicago Sun-Times Book of the Year, 1990 "A fascinating documentation of the most troubled life led by any important modern American writer." —Alfred Kazin The New York Times Book Review "It is hard to imagine that anything new or different will be said about Dreiser for a long time to come. Whatever a definitive biography may be, this is surely it." —Charles Fecher Chicago Tribune ... Read more

Product Description
A collection of eight critical essays on Dreiser's novel, arranged in chronological order of their original publication. ... 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. The premier example of American naturalism, Dreiser's remarkable first novel has deeply influenced such key writers as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, and Joyce Carol Oates. This edition uses the 1900 text, which is regarded as the author's final version. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great book even with a few typos
Maybe I'm just not as unforgiving as the other reviewers, but I found this edition to read just fine. Yes, there were a few errors, but not nearly as many as the other reviewers claimed. Aside from that, it's a great piece of literature from that era. It is a story of life in the factories of late 19th century Chicago, a story of an "immoral" girl being taken care of by men to escape the factory life, and the misery she caused them. Evidently, this book was considered scandalous in its day, as Carrie never suffers any consequences for her immorality. A good read.

Not worth the price
The constant typos in this edition ruin Dreiser's literary style. I got what I paid for.

Pay the extra $2.50 for a publisher's edition
This edition, which was prepared by volunteers, contains numerous errors, dropped words and punctuations, misspellings, wrong tenses, etc.It was so annoying to read that I purchased the Modern Library edition ($3.50) after about 75 pages.The errors are not occasional; they're on virtually every page.Although it's much less expensive, the savings aren't worth it. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
'American writing, before and after Dreiser's time, differed almost as much as biology before and after Darwin,' said H. L. Mencken. Sister Carrie, Dreiser's great first novel, transformed the conventional 'fallen woman' story into a bold and truly innovative piece of fiction when it appeared in 1900. Naïve young Caroline Meeber, a small-town girl seduced by the lure of the modern city, becomes the mistress of a traveling salesman and then of a saloon manager, who elopes with her to New York. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's unsparing, nonjudgmental approach made Sister Carrie a controversial book in its time, and the work retains the power to shock readers today.

'Sister Carrie came to housebound and airless America like a great free Western wind, and to our stuffy domesticity gave us the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman,' noted Sinclair Lewis. 'Dreiser enlarged, willy-nilly, by a kind of historical accident if you will, the range of American literature,' observed Robert Penn Warren. '[Sister Carrie] is a vivid and absorbing work of art.'Amazon.com Review
Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser's revolutionary first novel, waspublished in 1900--sort of. The story of Carrie Meeber, an 18-year-oldcountry girl who moves to Chicago andbecomes a kept woman, was strongstuff at the turn of the century, and what Dreiser's wary publisherreleased was a highly expurgated version. Times change, and we now have arestored "author's cut" of Sister Carrie that shows how truly aheadof his time Dreiser was.First and foremost, he has written an astute,nonmoralizing account of a woman and her limited optionsinlate-19th-century America.That's impressive in and of itself, but Dreiserdoesn't stop there. Digging deeply into the psychological underpinnings ofhis characters, he gives us people who are often strangers to themselves,drifting numbly until fate pushes them ona path they can later neitherdefend nor even remember choosing.

Dreiser's story unfolds in the measured cadences of an earlier era. Thissometimes works brilliantly as we follow the choices, small and large, thatlead some characters to doom and others to glory. On the other hand, themiddle chapters--of which there are many--do drag somewhat, even when oneappreciates Dreiser's intentions.If you can make it through the saggingmidsection, however, you'll be rewardedby Sister Carrie's last 150pages, which depict the harrowing downward spiral of one of the book'scentral characters. Here Dreiser portrays with brutal power how the wrongdecision--or lack of decision--can lay waste to a life. --RebeccaGleason ... Read more

Customer Reviews (117)

Charming
Sister Carrie floats from man to man and place to place.She is incpable of taking action for herself because she was raised to be a wife and mother.Finally, finding herself in a situation where she must find herself she does.She takes responsibility for herself and makes her way in the world.An easy, but long read.

Fine story and wonderful characters.I loved it!
Written in 1900, this book is an American classic that has certainly passed the test of time.From the very first page I was immediately so caught up in the story that I read 220 pages the first night and only stopped reading when I was too sleepy to continue.This is a fine story that keeps getting better and better as it progresses.I loved every word of it!

There are three memorable characters in the book.The first is Carrie herself, a young woman who comes to the big city of Chicago at the age of 18.Her quest for a job and the challenges of working in a factory are clearly brought to light.I pitied her situation and was actually rather glad when the prosperous salesman, Drouetseduces her and she seems to better herself.He's not into marrying her but he supports her and treats her well.She even gets a chance to take part in a play that his lodge is putting on.There's another man who is interested in her though, Hurstwood.He is a manager of a prosperous restaurant-bar and has a good life.Even though he is married, he courts her.How this all turns out is the stuff of real drama.

This book has it all, but most especially it is a deep exploration of character.Each of them is sympathetic in his or her own way.And they are depicted so well that I could view the world through their eyes and actually get under their skin.This is a powerful emotional story.It is as real as it can get and the cities of Chicago and New York are presented in ways that clearly impact the characters and the challenges they face.

Don't miss this book if you can help it.It is a lush and real treat!

AN EXCELLENT READ.
When it comes to classic literature I feel like I have to take the time to read,because most classic books are so formal and use a lot of gulided age wording ,but with this text it was so easy,because the words are so natural and flowing like John steinbeck ,this excellent book Sister Carrie the charaters in this work of litature use words that people use still to this present day. Unlike Edith Wharton and Henry James whose text you really have to take the time to get into, but still excellent writers.The point is buy or borrow this book from your local library. To me the book is saying that when you're poor you might have to step over and use people to get the things you need and want,and morals are for the people who can afford them. Still True to any decade.

"I Don't Know..."
This novel is amazing in that it makes one want to read on and on, even while finding all of the characters deplorable. Much like Dubus' House of Sand and Fog, we find a story in which the dilemma(s) are wholly interesting, but the characters are impossible to sympathize with, Carrie especially. Okay, I'll admit, I had a pang of feeling for Hurstwood toward the end, but even he is too much of a horse's ass to take seriously. Every character's favorite phrase is "I don't know," and it is true. None of them have any clue. It's all about surfaces/appearances. This is what the characters live for. They are all shallow and pathetic...and somehow, Dreiser still manages to deliver a good read---you know what they say about a train wreck... The fact of the matter is, the characters have no substance; they care too much about getting ahead to think about consequences. I once read that this novel was a favorite of F. Scott Fitzgerald (my all time favorite author). AFter having finished it, and comparing it to some of Fitzgerald's own shallow, self-absorbed characters, I can see why.
This is a book that you will love to hate, at least as far as the main "players" are concerned. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I would never want to meet a Carrie, Hurstwood or Drouet in person :)

Faces in the Crowd
"Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser was too scandalous in 1900 when it was originally published in a somewhat pared down version.Since then, Dreiser's original story has been restored and is hardly as scandalous by today's standards.It is a landmark work of naturalism, showing the rise of characters from poverty and the fall of the rich into despair due to egotistical decision making.

Oddly enough, the title does not do the book justice, for the book is not solely about Carrie Meeber, a young woman from Wisconsin who hopes for a better life in Chicago.After securing factory work, she soon finds herself a kept woman, the mistress of Charles Drouet, a traveling salesman who routinely ingratiates himself with pretty women.While Carrie has more than she ever hoped for, she constantly yearns for greater things.When Drouet introduces her to his friend George Hurstwood, Hurstwood becomes obsessed with winning Carrie over.He is successful in his venture but not without injuring her through deceit and forever changing the course his life will follow.The rest of the novel is devoted to the hardships that Carrie and Hurstwood face when they move to New York and how the tide of fortunes change for both of them.

Dreiser's story goes on far longer than it needs to, due to his moralizing strands inserted in an effort to pacify the more scandalous elements of his prose - an unmarried man and woman living together, shocking indeed for its time.Yet by the time the initial crisis of Carrie choosing between the two men arrives, it feels as if all of the story has been told.The middle section of the novel drags and while it is an easy read, it is not easy to keep reading.The reader will care little about Carrie or the two men in her life.She is vapid and two-dimensional, driven by lust for wealth and fame, while the men are just as empty-headed and egotistical, conscious only of what a beautiful woman will do for their own ego.

Dreiser managed to capture a lot of history in his novel, from Chicago's World Fair to strikes in the poor sections of New York City.He truly shows how environment determines one's fate and how it could be possible for one to rise above their station but not consider themselves happy or successful. ... Read more

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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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Don't bother with this free version...
Don't bother ordering this version...within a few paragraphs, one can tell that the book was transcribed very poorly, possibly by someone for whom English is not their first language. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Product Description
This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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A master of naturalism, Theodore Dreiser brought the American novel into the twentieth century. Fascinated by the city street, its parade of fashion and its threat of poverty and degradation, his journalistic eye lets us see as they were first seen the now familiar realities of modern living. "Sister Carrie" traces the fate of a small-town girl drawn into the brutal metropolitan worlds of Chicago and New York, and Sinclair Lewis called it "the first fresh air since Mark Twain and Whitman." "Jennie Gerhardt"'s vital but naive heroine emerges superior to the succession of men who exploit her. With honest emotion and respect for unvarnished truth, "Twelve Men" muses on the exemplary lives of ordinary men in search of lasting values with which to face the new century. Together, these three works exemplify the energy, originality, and genius of one of the great modern American writers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A highwayscribery "Book Report"
Theodore Dreiser's works hold up well as storytelling while offering the added advantage of being timepieces.

"Sister Carrie" and "Jennie Gerhardt" are similar tales of young girls whose youthful sexuality aid their flight from poverty.

Carrie and Jennie are sympathetic, nonetheless, because their climbs up the social latter are propelled, not by their own guile, but by that of the wealthy men who would deign to enjoy their youthful bounty.

Both attain fates that are only satisfactory and we will leave it at that so as not to spoil either novel's end point.

Dreiser wrote in a smooth style with more than a touch of density to it. He often erred on the side of expository writing, describing events and also telling you what they meant, rather than hitching them to action.

Nonetheless, the tales can hook you and make for engrossing reading because of the writer's thoroughness and the extreme polish he gave the prose.

The "Twelve Men" portion of the book is lengthy as either novel, without the advantage of narrative continuity, but still offers much. The characters are colorful, but unique mostly as products of a time that has passed and therefore impossible to duplicate or find in contemporary types.

Althought he lived well into the 1940s, these works are essentially post-Civil War works rendered by a younger man of German family reared in Indiana. His America is that of the Industrial Revolution. It is that bygone America where the beehive of industry is clustered along the shores of the Great Lakes.

Its gritty capitals are Chicago, Columbus and Cleveland. Their supporting casts are the smaller towns of his home state, Illinois, and Ohio. Railroads are king and the poor loiter around tracks looking for spare bits of coal that drop from hopper cars to warm their homes.

His New York is the New York of Broadway when Broadway was alone and uncontested by the film business for supremacy in the world of spectacle. It is the New York of the horse-drawn carriage and mule-driven dray, of the great Gilded Age fortunes.

This Library of America collection offers a view of these bygone eras and the people who strove in them through the skilled writing hand and practiced journalist's eye of an American literary stalwart.

unclear
These novels of course represent the best in literature, but LOA has left it unclear whether their version of Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt are the unexpurgated or heavily edited, tamed-dowm versions, the former recently released by Penguin Books. If not, this volume would be of little interest. ... Read more

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An extraordinary collection which reminds us how great a talent Dreiser was. ... Read more

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This epic of urban life tells of small- town heroine Carrie Meeber, adrift in an indifferent Chicago. Setting out, she has nothing but a few dollars and an unspoiled beauty. Hers is a story of struggle— from sweatshop to stage success—and of the love she inspires in an older, married man whose obsession with her threatens to destroy him. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Realistic, Modern and Honest
I just finished reading the book "Sister Carrie" by Theodore Dreiser (1900). This book was a good, easy read and is strangely still current, even though it was written over a hundred years ago. With the economy the way it is it seems that not much has changed, except perhaps the value of money. Carrie's desire to be in the city, as well as her experiences with men who claim they love her are realistic, modern and honest. I recommend this book to people interested in realistic fiction and coming of age stories; also to people who like reading stories about the mid-west-- Carrie is from Wisconsin and moves to Chicago, then travels to New York City by way of Detroit. ... Read more

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In Philadelphia, Frank Cowperwood, whose father is a banker, makes his first money by buying cheap soaps on the market and selling it back with profit to a grocer. Later, he gets a job in Henry Waterman & Company, and leaves it for Tighe & Company. He also marries an affluent widow, in spite of his young age. Over the years, he starts embezzling municipal funds.
As the story continues, Frank gets heavily involved in stocks and makes and loses several forunes.
A riveting tale fresh out of today's headlines.Amazon.com Review
Based on the life of flamboyant financier C.T. Yerkes,Dreiser's portrayal of the unscrupulous magnate Cowperwood embodiesthe idea that behind every great fortune there is a crime. You don'tread Dreiser for literary finesse, but his great intensity and keenjournalistic eye give this portrait a powerful reality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Great!
thanks for getting the book to me on time and the book was in great condtion

Financier
I never received the book.The distributor sent me the wrong book and failed to send me the new one.I sent back the wrong book and have not been compensated for my mailing expenses.

The best business and romance novel ever written
An important fact missed by all reviewers is that the Financier, and its suceessors The Titan and The Stoics, known together as the Trilogy of Desire, are based on the real life of railway tycoon Charles T. Yerkes. While many of the details are fictionalized, the core of the story is not, and the events described are real. I don't think that there have been many writers who displayed equal skills in moving from finance to romance as Dreiser does in The Financier, and his comprehension of the human character is plainly astonishing. At no time does Dreiser defend the flaws of Coperwood, the main characther, or his ruthless ambitions. As an impartial observer, Dreiser provides one of the most indepth analysis of the 19th Century businessman. I've read the book four times and each time I find it equally fascinating. Actually, the Titan, is the most fascinating of the three in all aspects of business transcations, speculations, and corruption, as it was written when Dreiser was at his peak. You will not be able to read another business novel after this one.

The Financier is a naturalistic examination of an amoral businessman in the financial jungle of nineteenth century America
Hoosier novelist Theodore Dreiser published "The Financier" in 1912. It was the first of his trilogy dealing with American business. Subsequent volumes are "The Pit" and "The Genius." "The Financier" has been published in a new edition by Penguin with a useful introduction by Lazer Ziff. It is a long and slow moving novel which will bore some readers.
The novel is a fictional account of a rutless financier who ascends the financial Matterhorn only to lose it all due to his criminality. Frank Copwerwood is born to a Philadelphia banker. He has a knack for business who charms and schemes his way to a million dollars and a beautiful home.
Cowperwood is a is a keen judge of men, the market and how societal events affect the stock market. He weds a nice but dumb widow; sires two children and carries on a long affair with another woman. Aileen Butler is the beautiful and bright daughter of an Irish businessman. When her father learns of the affair with the older Cowperwood he seeks his ruin.
Cowperwood spends over a year in prison for taking money from the City Treasurer in cahoots with the repulsive Uriah Heep-like Philadephia City treasurer. He emerges from prison undaunted; quickly regains his fortune and heads for Chicago with Aileen. He had earlier divorced his longsuffering wife Lillie making sure she and the children are provided for in Philadelphia comfort. The Chicago fire of 1871 plays an important role in bringing Cowperwood's criminal behavior to light.
Dreiser's novels are naturalistic in their description of dirty dealings, sexual escapades and the amorality of American business. Ehicks are a missing component in the life of the Type A personality of Cowperwood. He is always alert on how to make a buck and wield power.
The book is an example of gritty naturalism. It does, however, become tedious as Dreiser goes into incredible detail on the financial scene. The best parts of the book, deal with Cowperwood's private life. He emerges as a Nietzchian superman figure who conquers life through is forceful personality, strong financial acumen and complete lack of morality. Dreiser refuses to judge Cowperwood using his authorial voice.
Dreiser's is an awkward writer whose sentences lumber along. What makes him readable is an ability to tell a good story. He manifests
the reality underlying the hpyocrisy of American society. This is a book which is not for everone. It is a classic which demands time and thought.

Human, All Too Human
Talk about prescience. On the second page of my 2008 Penguin Classics paperback edition Dreiser writes - "There was a perfect plague of State banks, great and small, in those days [i.e., the Jackson era], issuing notes practically without regulations upon insecure and unknown assets and failing and suspending with astonishing rapidity." Dreiser wasn't attempting to predict the future, he was merely observing the way human greed manifests itself in the world of finance.

I won't go into a long dissertation about the novel and what it means. Suffice it to say that reading Dreiser always pasy dividends. Yes, his prose is clunky in places, and he's a bit predictable, but he is a realist par excellence -- every bit as good, if not better, than Zola, Howells, Norris, et al. Reading him with Nietzsche and the Stoics in mind is particularly illuminating (it's not for nothing that Frank Cowperwood's uncle is named Seneca.) ... Read more

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Jennie Gerhardt is a working-class girl whose harsh German father forces her to leave home when he discovers she is pregnant. Left in a lurch by the Ohio senator who dies before he can fulfill his promise to marry her, Jennie becomes the mistress of Lester Kane. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

A great read
Next to American Tragedy, I think this is TD's best.Not overly drawn out or sappy, the narrative of the story moves well.Infact much of the time I was reading it, I felt a tension, knowing full well what would happen to Jennie, but somehow hoping things would work out better for her.They don't, and TD brings us to this point by getting us into the characters' heads in a way where we can sympathize with all of them.

quite a story
i very much enjoyed this story - my first by this author.well-defined characters, all easy to like despite human flaws and shortcomings.

better than Sister Carrie
This is a great novel, more compact than Sister Carrie and somehow even more engrossing. The novel has a subtle, constant, building intensity such that it stayed in my head when I was away from it, and I actively anticipated resuming it as soon as possible. When I started it I thought it might be a sort of repackaged Sister Carrie, but it's not. Jennie Gerhardt is a distinctive novel, and just adds confirmation of the obvious--Dreiser can plot a big story and develop complex, emotionally affecting characters as well as anyone. I did not expect the wallop this novel packs. I'm puzzled that it's not widely and popularly regarded as a classic. I think it should be.

Old-fashioned soap opera... with a conscience
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.

Jennie Gerhardt

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. ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Literature; Novel; Indiana; Fiction / General; Fiction / Classics; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Westerns; History / United States / State ... Read more

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A Must-Read for Any Investor!
This book is a must read for any investor. It makes clear that economic bubbles and financial crises have the same causes in all centuries: excessive debt, secured by speculative assets. Once the collateral falls in price, the lender requires to repay the debt or add more collateral. Since the borrower have used excessive leverage, he is unable to handle the debt and goes bankrupt, which leaves the lender with illiquid assets. Here are some examples:

1871: Frank Cowperwood have used stocks of Philadelphia's railroads as a collateral to huge loans, and when the Great Chicago Fire sparked a financial panic, he could neither repay the debt nor add more collateral, thus became insolvent.
1929: Widespread use of margin, of up to 90% was one of the reasons of the Great Depression. The investor could buy $100,000 worth of stock with $10,000 of own cash, borrowing the remaining $90,000 from the broker. The sharp drop of the stock price made the investors unable repay the debt, they became insolvent. The brokers were left with cheap stocks and became insolvent also.
2007: The dot-com bubble of 2000 contributed to the housing bubble. Once stocks fell, real estate became the primary outlet for the speculative frenzy that the stock market had unleashed. The families were buying houses when they knew that they cannot afford the mortgage for a long time, they were buying only to sell it to later at higher price. The rise in home prices was very attractive for construction industry: the number of newly built houses have significantly increased. When the prices of the houses have fallen due to the balance between the supply and demand, the speculators who run out of cash to repay the mortgages could no longer sell the houses at a price they bought. This essentially led homeowners to foreclosures. The great amount of foreclosures have caused huge losses to the lenders, made them insolvent or put under Government's conservatorship, when the shareholder value was diluted if not wiped out.

While the first book in the trilogy, "The Financier", is not a skilled picture of smallest traits of a human soul when it comes to love and feelings, this second book, "The Stoic", covers the human soul better, but not as good as in writings by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (take "The Brothers Karamazov"). When it comes to the financial aspects, they are very well covered. I recommend you to read the whole trilogy: "The Financier", "The Titan" and "The Stoic".

"Each according to his temperament": Drieser's Moral Relativism
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 Titan good, but it is short of The Financier
Theodore Dreiser clearly was a great writer at the beginning of the20th 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.

Titan A Good Read with A Social Warning
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.

Oddly Intriguing
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. ... Read more