Sister Carrie

By Theodore Dreiser

While working as a freelance journalist, Theodore Dreiser wrote his first novel, "Sister Carrie" (1900). This naturalist novel was considered groundbreaking at its inception, and even scandalous as it became well known. Dreiser faced challenges getting it published, with the subject matter considered racy for readers. Despite this initial struggle, "Sister Carrie" is considered Dreiser's most prolific work.

Carrie Meeber, the main character, is a young woman from a small town in the Midwest who leaves her family to attempt to make her own way in Chicago. Her excitement at this prospect soon changes to sorrow when she realises that the life she will lead working in a factory is not glamorous. In a state of despair, she accepts money from a travelling salesman, Drouet, and she moves to his apartment, where she lives in comfort without working as his mistress. Later, she is tricked into leaving Chicago for New York with another man, Hurstwood, who is more successful than Drouet, but who soon fails...

• Language: English
• Publisher: E-BOOKARAMA
• Release date: May 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9788834165973

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.