Sister Carrie: Top American Novels
About this ebook
Chapter II. WHAT POVERTY THREATENED—OF GRANITE AND BRASS
Chapter III. WEE QUESTION OF FORTUNE—FOUR-FIFTY A WEEK
Chapter IV. THE SPENDINGS OF FANCY—FACTS ANSWER WITH SNEERS
Chapter V. A GLITTERING NIGHT FLOWER—THE USE OF A NAME
Chapter VI. THE MACHINE AND THE MAIDEN—A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY
Chapter VII. THE LURE OF THE MATERIAL—BEAUTY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
Chapter VIII. INTIMATIONS BY WINTER—AN AMBASSADOR SUMMONED
Chapter IX. CONVENTION'S OWN TINDER-BOX—THE EYE THAT IS GREEN
Chapter X. THE COUNSEL OF WINTER—FORTUNE'S AMBASSADOR CALLS
Chapter XI. THE PERSUASION OF FASHION—FEELING GUARDS O'ER ITS OWN
Chapter XII. OF THE LAMPS OF THE MANSIONS—THE AMBASSADOR PLEA
Chapter XIII. HIS CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED—A BABEL OF TONGUES
Chapter XIV. WITH EYES AND NOT SEEING—ONE INFLUENCE WANES
Chapter XV. THE IRK OF THE OLD TIES—THE MAGIC OF YOUTH
Chapter XVI. A WITLESS ALADDIN—THE GATE TO THE WORLD
Chapter XVII. A GLIMPSE THROUGH THE GATEWAY—HOPE LIGHTENS THE EYE
Chapter XVIII. JUST OVER THE BORDER—A HAIL AND FAREWELL
Chapter XIX. AN HOUR IN ELFLAND—A CLAMOUR HALF HEARD
Chapter XX. THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT—THE FLESH IN PURSUIT
Chapter XXI. THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT—THE FLESH IN PURSUIT
Chapter XXII. THE BLAZE OF THE TINDER—FLESH WARS WITH THE FLESH
Chapter XXIII. A SPIRIT IN TRAVAIL—ONE RUNG PUT BEHIND
Chapter XXIV. ASHES OF TINDER—A FACE AT THE WINDOW
Chapter XXV. ASHES OF TINDER—THE LOOSING OF STAYS
Chapter XXVI. THE AMBASSADOR FALLEN—A SEARCH FOR THE GATE
Chapter XXVII. WHEN WATERS ENGULF US WE REACH FOR A STAR
Chapter XXVIII. A PILGRIM, AN OUTLAW—THE SPIRIT DETAINED
Chapter XXIX. THE SOLACE OF TRAVEL—THE BOATS OF THE SEA
Chapter XXX. THE KINGDOM OF GREATNESS—THE PILGRIM A DREAM
Chapter XXXI. A PET OF GOOD FORTUNE—BROADWAY FLAUNTS ITS JOYS
Chapter XXXII. THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR—A SEER TO TRANSLATE
Chapter XXXIII. WITHOUT THE WALLED CITY—THE SLOPE OF THE YEARS
Chapter XXXIV. THE GRIND OF THE MILLSTONES—A SAMPLE OF CHAFF
Chapter XXXV. THE PASSING OF EFFORT—THE VISAGE OF CARE
Chapter XXXVI. A GRIM RETROGRESSION—THE PHANTOM OF CHANCE
Chapter XXXVII. THE SPIRIT AWAKENS—NEW SEARCH FOR THE GATE
Chapter XXXVIII. IN ELF LAND DISPORTING—THE GRIM WORLD WITHOUT
Chapter XXXIX. OF LIGHTS AND OF SHADOWS—THE PARTING OF WORLDS
Chapter XL. A PUBLIC DISSENSION—A FINAL APPEAL
Chapter XLI. THE STRIKE
Chapter XLII. A TOUCH OF SPRING—THE EMPTY SHELL
Chapter XLIII. THE WORLD TURNS FLATTERER—AN EYE IN THE DARK
Chapter XLIV. AND THIS IS NOT ELF LAND—WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY
Chapter XLV. CURIOUS SHIFTS OF THE POOR
Chapter XLVI. STIRRING TROUBLED WATERS
Chapter XLVII. THE WAY OF THE BEATEN—A HARP IN THE WIND
Ratings and reviews
About the author
About Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of choice and agency. Dreiser's best known novels include Sister Carrie (1900) and An American Tragedy (1925). In 1930 he was nominated to the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Dreiser published his first novel, Sister Carrie, in 1900. Portraying a changing society, he wrote about a young woman who flees rural life for the city (Chicago) and struggles with poverty, complex relationships with men, and prostitution. It sold poorly and was considered controversial because of moral objections to his featuring a country girl who pursues her dreams of fame and fortune through relationships with men. The book has since acquired a considerable reputation. It has been called the "greatest of all American urban novels." It was adapted as a 1952 film by the same name, directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones.
In response to witnessing a lynching in 1893, Dreiser wrote the short story, "Nigger Jeff" (1901), which was published in Ainslee's Magazine. This period is considered the "nadir" of American race relations, with a high rate of lynchings in Southern states, which from 1890 to 1910 also disfranchised most black citizens from voting, legalized white supremacy and Jim Crow, and suppressed blacks in second-class status for decades.
His second novel, Jennie Gerhardt, was published in 1911. His featuring young woman as protagonists dramatized the social changes of urbanization, as young people moved from rural villages to cities.
Dreiser's first commercial success was An American Tragedy, published in 1925. From 1892, when Dreiser began work as a newspaperman, he had begun "to observe a certain type of crime in the United States that proved very common. It seemed to spring from the fact that almost every young person was possessed of an ingrown ambition to be somebody financially and socially." "Fortune hunting became a disease" with the frequent result of a peculiarly American kind of crime, a form of "murder for money", when "the young ambitious lover of some poorer girl" found "a more attractive girl with money or position" but could not get rid of the first girl, usually because of pregnancy.
Dreiser claimed to have collected such stories every year between 1895 and 1935. He based his novel on details and setting of the 1906 murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in upstate New York, which attracted widespread attention from newspapers. While the novel sold well, it was also criticized for his portrayal of a man without morals who commits a sordid murder. The novel was adapted as a film in 1931, by the same name, and again in 1951 (this time it was titled A Place in the Sun).
Though known primarily as a novelist, Dreiser also wrote short stories, publishing his first collection, Free and Other Stories, in 1918, made up of 11 stories.
His story, "My Brother Paul", was a kind of biography of his older brother, Paul Dresser, who became a famous songwriter in the 1890s. This story was the basis for the 1942 romantic movie, My Gal Sal.
Dreiser also wrote poetry. His poem, "The Aspirant" (1929), continues his theme of poverty and ambition: a young man in a shabby furnished room describes his own and the other tenants' dreams, and asks "why? why?" The poem appeared in The Poetry Quartos, collected and printed by Paul Johnston, and published by Random House in 1929.
Other works include Trilogy of Desire, which was based on the life of Charles Tyson Yerkes, who became a Chicago streetcar tycoon. It is composed of The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic. The last was published posthumously in 1947.
Dreiser was often forced to battle against censorship, because his depiction of some aspects of life, such as sexual promiscuity, offended authorities and challenged popular standards of acceptable opinion.
