Theodore+Dreiser



Theodore Dreiser, the American author best known for the novel Sister Carrie (1912), introduced a powerful style of writing that had a profound influence on the writers that followed him, from Steinbeck to Fitzgerald and Hemingway. It was in Sister Carrie that Theodore Dreiser created a fictional account that laid bare the harsh reality of life in the big city and in which Dreiser established himself as the architect of a new genre. This forceful first novel set a new path for American novels at the end of the nineteenth century. Dreiser was born in 1871 into a large family whose fortunes had in the recent past taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Before Theodore's birth, his father had built up a successful factory business only to lose it to a fire. The family was rather abruptly thrust into poverty, and Theodore spent his youth moving from place to place in the Midwest as the family tried desperately to reestablish itself financially. He left home at the age of sixteen. At his young age, he moved alone to Chicago and supported himself by taking odd jobs. After earning some money, he spent a year at Indiana University but left school and returned to Chicago, yearning for the glamour and excitement that it offered. At the age of twenty-two, he began work as a reporter for a small newspaper in Chicago, the Daily Globe, and later worked on newspapers in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Saint Louis, and New York City. In his work as a reporter, he was witness to the seamier side of life and was responsible for recording events that befell the less fortunate in the city, the beggars, the alcoholics, the prostitutes, and the working poor. Dreiser first tried his hand at fiction by writing short stories rather than novels, and the first four short stories that he wrote were published. It was rather unusual for a novice writer to achieve so much so quickly. Based on this, he was encouraged to write a novel that would accurately depict the harsh life of the city, and the novel Sister Carrie was the result of his effort. This novel chronicles the life of Carrie Meeber, a small-town girl who goes to Chicago in a quest for fame and fortunate. As Carrie progresses from factory worker to Broadway star by manipulating anyone in her path, Dreiser sends a clear message about the tragedy of life that is devoted purely to the quest for money. Sister Carrie, unfortunately for Dreiser, did not achieve immediate success. The novel was accepted for publication by Doubleday, but Dreiser was immediately asked to make major revisions to the novel. These changes were intended to tone down some of the starker and more scandalous descriptions. When Dreiser refused to make the revisions, Doubleday published only a limited number of copies of the book and refused to promote or advertise it. Published in limited release and without the backing of the company, the novel was a dismal failure, selling fewer than 500 copies. After the failure of the novel that was so meaningful to him, Dreiser suffered a nervous breakdown; he was depressed stricken with severe headaches, and unable to sleep for days on end. Having sunk to a point where he was considering suicide, he was sent by his brother to a sanatorium in White Plains, New York, where he eventually recovered. After leaving the sanatorium, he took a position as an editor for Butterick's. This company was one that published magazines to promote sewing and the sale of clothing patterns. He was successful in this position, and was eventually able to purchase a one-third interest in a new publishing company, B. W. Dodge, which republished Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie. This new release of the novel proved considerably more successful than the first release had been. In its first year, the reissued version of Sister Carrie sold 4,500 copies, with strong reviews, and the next year it sold more than 10,000 copies. The recognition that accompanied the success of the novel was based not only on the power of the description of the perils of urban life but also on the new trend in literature that Dreiser was credited with establishing.