Theodore Dreiser

A master of gritty naturalism, Theodore Dreiser explores the corruption of the American dream in The Financier. Frank Cowperwood, a fiercely ambitious businessman, emerges as the very embodiment of greed as he relentlessly seeks satisfaction in wealth, women, and power. As Cowperwood deals and double-deals, betrays and is in turn betrayed, his rise and fall come to represent the American success story stripped down to brutal realities-a struggle for spoils without conscience or pity. Dreiser's 1912 classic remains an unsparing social critique as well as a devastating character study of one of the most unforgettable American businessmen in twentieth-century literature.

A landmark in American literature, presented in its complete and unexpurgated version. Dreiser's unsparing story of a country girl's rise to riches as the mistress of a wealthy man marked the beginning of the naturalist movement in America. Both its subject matter and Dreiser's objective, nonmoralizing approach made it highly controversial, and only a heavily edited version could be published in 1900. In this restored version, the truly revolutionary nature of Sister Carrie is made fully evident.

Publicada a regañadientes por su propio editor, que la juzgaba inmoral y apenas la distribuyó, Nuestra Carrie pasó prácticamente inadvertida en el momento de su aparición, en 1900. Con el tiempo, sin embargo, habria de ser considerada la gran novela naturalista norteamericana. En ella Dreiser trazo la completa carrera de una heroina desde que, en las primeras paginas, deja su pueblo natal llamandose Caroline Meeber hasta que, en las ultimas, ilumina con su nuevo nombre, Carrie Madenda, las carteleras de los teatros de Broadway. Dos ciudades hipnoticas, Chicago y Nueva York, ya se habran rendido a sus pies y dos hombres, Drouet y Hurstwood, habran observado, seguido, propiciado y sufrido su ascenso.

Theodre Dreiser was born into a large and impoverished German American family in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1871. He began his writing career as a reporter, working for newspapers in Chicago. Pittsburg, and St. Louis, until an editor friend, Arthur Henry, suggested he write a novel. The result was Sister Carrie, based on the life of Dreiser's own sister Emma, who had run off to New York with a married man. Rejected by several publishers as "immoral," the book was finally accepted by Doubleday and Company, and published-over Frank Doubleday's strong objections-in 1900.