Dreiser, Theodore (drī`sər, –zər), 1871–1945, American novelist, b. Terre Haute, Ind. A pioneer of naturalism in American literature, Dreiser wrote novels reflecting his mechanistic view of life, a concept that held humanity as the victim of such ungovernable forces as economics, biology, society, and even chance. In his works, conventional morality is unimportant, consciously virtuous behavior having little to do with material success and happiness. While his style and language tended to be clumsy and plodding, he played an important role in introducing a new realism and sexual candor into American fiction. Dreiser was born into a large and poor family. His education was irregular, but, with help from a sympathetic high school teacher, he spent the year 1889–90 at the Univ. of Indiana. After working as a journalist on several midwestern newspapers, in 1894 he went to New York City, where he began a career in publishing, eventually rising to the presidency of Butterick Publications.

His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), the story of a country girl's rise to material success first as the mistress of a wealthy man and then as an actress, horrified its publisher, who gave it only limited circulation. Dreiser distributed it himself, but it was consistently attacked as immoral; it was reissued in 1982 with many passages from his revised typescript restored. Jennie Gerhardt (1911), again about a "fallen woman," met with a better response; its success allowed Dreiser to work as a writer full time. With these two works, Dreiser started his long battle for the right of the novelist to portray life as he sees it.

In The Financier (1912), he turned his attention more specifically to American social and economic institutions. This novel, the first of a trilogy that includes The Titan (1914) and The Stoic (1947), describes the rise to power of a ruthless industrialist. In both The Genius (1915) and in The Bulwark (1946), Dreiser explores the failings of an American artist. An American Tragedy (1925), often considered his greatest work, tells of a poor young man's futile effort to achieve social and financial success; the attempt ends in his execution for murder. In his later life Dreiser became interested in socialism, visiting the Soviet Union as a guest of the government and writing his perceptions: Dreiser Looks at Russia (1928) and Tragic America (1931). Among his other works are such collections of short stories as Free (1918), Chains (1927), and A Gallery of Women (1929).

Bibliography

See his memoirs, A Traveler at Forty (1913), A Book About Myself (1922; republished as Newspaper Days, 1931), and Dawn (1931); his letters, ed. by R. Elias (3 vol., 1959); biographies by W. A. Swanberg (1965) and R. Lingeman (2 vol., 1986–90); studies by E. Moers (1969), F. O. Matthiessen (1951, repr. 1973), J. Lundquist (1974), and L. E. Hussman (1983).

Dreiser, Theodore (Herman Albert)

Theodore Dreiser.

(credit: The Granger Collection, New York)

(born Aug. 27, 1871, Terre Haute, Ind., U.S.—died Dec. 28, 1945, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. novelist. Born to poor German immigrant parents, Dreiser left home at age 15 for Chicago. He worked as a journalist, and in 1894 he moved to New York, where he had a successful career as a magazine editor and publisher. His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), about a young kept woman who goes unpunished for her transgressions, was denounced as scandalous. His subsequent novels would confirm his reputation as the outstanding American practitioner of naturalism. After the success of Jennie Gerhardt (1911), he began writing full-time, producing a trilogy consisting of The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (published 1947), which was followed by The Genius (1915) and its sequel, The Bulwark (published 1946). An American Tragedy (1925), based on a murder trial and itself the basis for the 1931 film by that name and for a 1951 film entitled A Place in the Sun, made him a hero among social reformers.

Dreiser, Theodore (Herman Albert) (1871–1945) writer; born in Terre Haute, Ind. Raised in poverty and in a German-speaking environment, he left home for Chicago at age 16. After a period of odd jobs and a year at the University of Indiana he became a Midwestern newspaper reporter, and, in New York after 1894, a magazine feature writer. Sister Carrie (1900), his first and still highly regarded novel, was withheld from general distribution because of its supposed amorality; its commercial failure plunged him into financial distress and mental breakdown (1904). He reestablished himself as a magazine editor, however, and self-published a second, successful edition of Sister Carrie (1907). The success of the novel Jennie Gerhardt (1911) allowed him to write full time; The Financier (1912) and The Titan (1914) followed. These novels were ungainly in style but groundbreaking in their naturalism and critique of American capitalist society. The withdrawal from distribution, on moral grounds, of his autobiographical novel, The Genius (1915), ignited a national anticensorship campaign supported by most of the leading literary figures of the day. His next decade, marked by an energetic output of plays, stories, memoirs, and travel books, culminated in An American Tragedy (1925), a major popular success despite its bleak view of American values. He publicly supported left-wing causes through the 1930s and 1940s and propounded socialist ideas in his late works, joining the Communist Party shortly before his death. He had also returned to writing novels, two of which—The Bulwark (1946) and The Stoic (1947)—were among his various works published posthumously. As insensitive in his treatment of the English language as he was of many women in his life, he seems destined to survive as a major American writer.