Sister Carrie, by
Theodore Dreiser, is part of the
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the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of
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New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and
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When small-town Carrie Meeber arrives in 1890s Chicago, she cannot know what awaits. Callow, beautiful, and alone, she experiences the bitterness of temptation and hardship even as she sets her
sights on a better life. Drawn by the seductive desire to rise above her social class, Carrie aspires to the top of the acting profession in New York, while the man who has become obsessed with
her gambles everything for her sake and draws near the brink of destruction.
Dreiser’s first novel, Sister Carrie (1900) was inspired by the life of one of his sisters, who had eloped to New York with a disreputable lover. Its sympathetic depiction of Carrie’s love
affairs shocked its publisher, whose grudging efforts won few initial readers until the book’s successful re-publication in 1907. Today it resonates with Dreiser’s clear-sighted understanding
of life in the increasingly mercantile world of the big city, and with his belief in the domination of fate over free will. Particularly in the unflinching tragedy of its final chapters, the
novel broke new ground in American fiction for its gritty realism and for the character of Carrie, who begins “a half-equipped little knight” and becomes a truly modern woman.
Herbert Leibowitz is the editor and publisher of
Parnassus: Poetry in Review. His books include
Fabricating Lives: Explorations in American Autobiography and
Hart Crane:
An Introduction to the Poetry. He is currently writing a critical biography of William Carlos Williams.