An American Tragedy is the story of Clyde Griffiths, who spends his life in the desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, it is the masterful portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde’s ambitions and seal his fate; it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American dream. Extraordinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as Theodore Dreiser’s supreme achievement.
First published in 1925 and based on an actual criminal case, An American Tragedy was the inspiration for the 1951 film A Place in the Sun, which won six Academy Awards and starred Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift.

This collection presents eleven of Dreiser’s best tales, ranging from trenchant social analysis to penetrating character study.

One of Dreiser’s most powerful stories, “N****r Jeff” was occasioned when Dreiser was forced to witness a lynching, an experience that disturbed him deeply.

Jennie Gerhardt is the tragic story of an innocent, caring, beautiful young girl from an extremely poor family who throughout her life is drawn into affairs with two different men from a much higher social class. How members of her family, the family of one of the wealthy men, and society in general react to her situation is the basis of this classic story.

Jennie Gerhardt was Theodore Dreiser’s first true commercial success and is generally regarded as one of his best novels.

When small-town girl Carrie Meeber sets out for Chicago, she is equipped with nothing but a few dollars, a certain unspoiled beauty and charm, and a pitiful lack of preparation for the complex moral choices she will face. Adrift in an indifferent city, she struggles from the sweatshop to stage success and inspires an obsessive love in a married man twice her age–which threatens to destroy him.

Dreiser transforms the conventional fallen-woman story into a genuinely original work of imaginative fiction. He hurls his impressionable eighteen-year-old heroine into the amoral world of the big city and reveals, with powerful insight, the driving forces of our culture: America’s restless idealism, glamorous material seductions, and spiritual innocence. Many consider this the greatest novel on urban life ever written.

Alone in the city, a young woman meets a man who promises to make her dreams come true. Eighteen-year-old Carrie is drawn to the glamour, wealth, and excitement of Chicago. But to be part of this glittering world, she will need much more money than she can even imagine. The only jobs she can find offer harsh conditions and little pay. Finally, inexperienced and desperate, she allows the smooth-talking salesman Charles Drouet to buy her meals and pretty clothes. Will Carrie ever find true happiness? And how much will she have to give up to get what she wants?
Theodore 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.

A master of literary naturalism, Dreiser is known for his great intensity and keen journalistic eye as he examines real-life subjects. This powerful novel explores the dynamics of the financial world during the Civil War and after the stock-market panic caused by the Great Chicago Fire.

The first in a “trilogy of desire,”The Financiertells the story of the ruthlessly dominating broker Frank Cowperwood as he climbs the ladder of success, his adoring mistress championing his every move. As he goes on to both win and lose a fortune or two, he steps on anything–and anyone–in his path. Based on the life of financier C. T. Yerkes, Dreiser’s cutting portrayal of the corrupt magnate Cowperwood illustrates the idea that wealth is often obtained by less than reputable means.

The Titan is the second volume in what the author called his “trilogy of desire,” featuring the character of Frank Cowperwood—a powerful, irresistibly compelling man driven by his own need for power, beautiful women, and social prestige.

Having married his former mistress, Aileen Butler, and moved to Chicago, Cowperwood almost succeeds in his dream of establishing a monopoly of all public utilities. Dissatisfaction with Aileen leads him, however, to a series of affairs with other women. When the Chicago citizenry frustrates his financial schemes, he departs for Europe with Berenice Fleming, the lovely daughter of the madam of a Louisville brothel. At last, Cowperwood experiences “the pathos of the discovery that even giants are but pygmies, and that an ultimate balance must be struck.”