Mencken's critical analysis of the author in A Book of Prefaces, titled Theodore Dreiser. Mencken commented on Dreiser: 'Out of the desert of American fictioneering, so populous and yet so dreary, Dreiser stands up-a phenomenon unescapably visible, but disconcertingly hard to explain.' Dreiser also wrote short stories and poems. He achieved significant commercial success in 1925 with An American Tragedy. It comprised of: The Financier (1912), The Titan (1914), and The Stoic (1947).

His Trilogy of Desire was based on the life of a Chicago streetcar tycoon, Charles Tyson Yerkes. And the two thousand passengers routed like rats from their berths only to float helplessly in miles of water, praying and crying!”ĭreiser published Sister Carrie (1900), the story about a young girl's pursuit of the American dream, from mistress to famous actress. But Dreiser’s fortunes changed in 1925 with the highly successful publication of his sixth novel, An American Tragedy, which relied heavily on the circumstances surrounding the life of Chester Gillette. Theodore Dreiser's beginnings were not auspicious. However, Dreiser experienced only limited success from his works because many regarded his subject matter to be immoral and indecent. 'To think of a ship as immense as the Titanic, new and bright, sinking in endless fathoms of water. Although Theodore Dreiser never received the Nobel Prize for literature, he is recognized today as a genuine American literary pioneer, and his massive An American Tragedy is acclaimed as one of the most important novels in American literature. He wrote in his memoir, A Traveler at Forty (1913) the following year: He was at sea aboard the Kroonland when he learned that the Titanic went down.

He was persuaded to take a less expensive ship by an English publisher and booked passage on the liner Kroonland instead of the Titanic. As he concluded his first European holiday, the forty year old author wanted to take the Titanic back to America. ĭreiser holds an interesting footnote in history. He influenced a number of writers, including Sherwood Anderson. Theodore Dreiser (1871 - 1945) is considered one of the great American novelists from early in the 20th century, along with Edith Wharton, Stephen Crane, and Jack London. Pen Name: Theodore Dreiser Born: AugDied: December 28, 1945

An american tragedy by theodore dreiser