Theodore Dreiser: 39 books

Published in 1911, Dreiser's bittersweet novel follows his long-suffering protagonist, Jennie Gerhardt, in her efforts to find love and forge a meaningful life. This proves to be difficult in a society quick to judge poverty as a moral failing, a theme that remains relevant today, nearly a century after it was written.

Eugene Witla, a promising young Midwestern artist created in Dreiser’s own image, moves from Chicago to New York in search of fulfillment. As the “genius” climbs social and financial ladders, he grows a voracious sexual appetite—the exploration of which put this book on the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice’s censure list.

In The Titan (1914), the second volume in Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, which began with The Financier (1912) and finished with the posthumously published The Stoic (1947), the action shifts from Philadelphia to Chicago, where Frank Cowperwood plans to make himself the boss of the city's transportation system . . . by any means necessary.

Regarded as one of Dreiser's best novels, Jennie Gerhardt is here recaptured as it was originally written, restoring it to its complete, unexpurgated form.

A country girl moves to the big city and lives her own version of the American Dream by becoming mistress to the men of her choice and so working her way to fame as an actress. Sinclair Lewis said of the novel in 1930, "Dreiser's great first novel, Sister Carrie, which he dared to publish...

The controversial classic novel of a young woman’s journey from poverty to stardom in capitalist America.   Dissatisfied with life in rural Wisconsin, eighteen-year-old Carrie Meeber travels to Chicago. With no money or prospects, her only means of survival is a job in a squalid factory—until...

The Financier is a nuanced portrait of one of the greatest characters in twentieth-century literature. Based on the life of railway tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes, the epic narrative spans from the aftermath of the Civil War to the Great Chicago Fire and the Panic of 1873. Both a glimpse of a fascinating...

Cowperwood, still married to his estranged wife Aileen, lives with Berenice. He decides to move to London, England, where he intends to take over and develop the underground railway system. Berenice becomes close to Earl Stane, while Frank has an affair with Lorna Maris, a relative of his. Meanwhile,...

The large and rather comfortable apartment of Rufus Haymaker, architect, in Central Park West, was very silent. It was scarcely dawn yet, and at the edge of the park, over the way, looking out from the front windows which graced this abode and gave it its charm, a stately line of poplars was still...

The Sister Carrie edition that was published in 1900, long regarded as a watershed work in American fiction, was actually a censored misrepresentation of Drieser's original story. When, 80 years later, the Pennsylvania Edition first appeared, replete with scholarly apparatus, it was hailed from coast...

This file includes: Sister Carrie (1900), Jennie Gerhardt (1911), The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914, and Twelve Men (1919). According to Wikipedia: "Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (August 27, 1871 December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist. He pioneered the naturalist school and...