N B C University Theater: Sister Carrie

Written by Theodore Dreiser

Narrated by Kay Stewart

'NBC University Theater’ initially started in Chicago with a remit to bring adaptations of classic novels, usually Anglo-American, to a radio audience.

Additionally, if listeners signed up they received college credit to a radio-assisted correspondence course. A study guide, The Handbook of the World's Great Novels, was available for 25 cents.

In its later years it also included short stories and plays and went on to win the distinguished Peabody award.

Unlike many other radio shows University Theatre did not pursue the glamourous stars for its productions but instead relied on excellent distillations of the novels and first class acting alongside high production values.

But now its time to enjoy these timeless novels. Let’s begin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Copyright Group
• Release date: Sep 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781787808430

Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in Indiana, Dreiser was the son of John Paul Dreiser, a German immigrant, and Sarah Maria Schanab, a Mennonite from Ohio who converted to Catholicism and was banished by her community. Raised in a family of thirteen children, of which he was the twelfth, Dreiser attended Indiana University for a year before taking a job as a journalist for the Chicago Globe. While working for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dreiser wrote articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Dean Howells, as well as interviewed such figures as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison. In 1900, he published his debut novel Sister Carrie, a naturalist portrait of a young midwestern woman who travels to Chicago to become an actress. Despite poor reviews, he continued writing fiction, but failed to find real success until An American Tragedy (1925), a novel based on the 1906 murder of Grace Brown. Considered a masterpiece of American fiction, the novel grew his reputation immensely, leading to his nomination for the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, which ultimately went to fellow American Sinclair Lewis. Committed to socialism and atheism throughout his life, Dreiser was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and a lifelong champion of the working class.