Theodore Dreiser

The Financier (1912) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. The first installment of Dreiser's Trilogy of Desire, The Financier has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Followed by The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947), The Financier captures the greed at the heart of the Gilded Age, a time when tycoons rose with total impunity to take over swaths of American industry....

"Clyde Griffiths was born poor and is poorly educated, but his prospects begin to improve when he is offered a job by a wealthy uncle who owns a shirt factory. Soon he achieves a managerial position, and despite being warned to stay away from the women he manages, he becomes involved with Roberta, a poor factory worker who falls in love with him. At the same time, he catches the eye of Sondra, the glamorous socialite daughter of another factory owner,...

Although world-famous for his novels Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, Theodore Dreiser was also highly accomplished in journalism, autobiography, and travel writing. In 1919, having recently accepted the publishing contract of a new publisher, Dreiser proposed to publish a "book of characters" that would collect twelve biographical sketches of individuals who were major influences on Dreiser, both as a man and as a writer. The resulting narratives...

In stories such as Six O'Clock, The City Awakes and The Waterfront, the author returns the reader to turn-of-the-century New York with his early memories of the city.

Tormented to distraction by the death of his true love, an old man embarks on a quixotic quest to find her. A tale that is tragic yet tender, Theodore Dreiser demonstrates the power of a love that bridges the gap between life and death.

Based on the Theodore Dreiser novel that publishers deemed "too immoral," William Wyler's Carrie is a power-house of human passions transformed into soul-withering frailties. As Carrie, the smalltown girl come to Chicago, Jennifer Jones "seems to have stepped out of the pages of the book" (Time). And Laurence Olivier gives one of his finest portrayals as love-doomed Hurstwood. "Olivier has always given credit to Wyler for teaching him how to act in...