Sister Carrie (Modern Library): 1 (Modern Library 100 Best Novels) - Softcover

Theodore Dreiser; Andrew Delbanco (Introduction)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0375753214 ISBN 13: 9780375753213

Publisher: Modern Library Inc, 1999

Synopsis

`When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.' The tale of Carrie Meeber's rise to stardom in the theatre and George Hurstwood's slow decline captures the twin poles of exuberance and exhaustion in modern city life as never before. The premier example of American naturalism, Dreiser's remarkable first novel has deeply influenced such key writers as William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Saul Bellow, and Joyce Carol Oates. This edition uses the 1900 text, which is regarded as the author's final version. Long before she was seduced by the cautious and ordinary man whose life she would unravel with no malice and only intermittent interest, the young Carrie Meeber was seduced by the promise of the city--its vitality and reckless possibility, the thrill of material luxury, and the spectacle of power and industry. Banned on publication for its questionable morals, Sister Carrie is the great American novel of seduction, a masterpiece of insight into appetite and innocence. Since 1917 The Modern Library prides itself as The modern Library of the world s Best Books . Featuring introductions by leading writers, stunning translations, scholarly endnotes and reading group guides. Production values emphasize superior quality and readability. Competitive prices, coupled with exciting cover design make these an ideal gift to be cherished by the avid reader.

About this title

Review:

Theodore Dreiser is a man who, with the passage of time, is bound to loom larger and larger in the awakening aesthetic consciousness of America. Among all of our prose writers he is one of the few men of whom it may be said that he has . . . never been a trickster. If there is a modern movement in American prose writing, a movement toward greater courage and fidelity to life in writing, Theodore Dreiser is the pioneer and the hero of the movement. --Sherwood Anderson

Such a novel as Sister Carrie stands quite outside the brief traffic of the customary stage. It leaves behind an inescapable impression of bigness, of epic sweep and dignity. It is not a mere story, not a novel in the customary American meaning of the word; it is at once a psalm of life and a criticism of life. . . . [Dreiser's] aim is not merely to tell a tale; his aim is to show the vast ebb and flow of forces which sway and condition human destiny. The thing he seeks to do is to stir, to awaken, to move. One does not arise from such a book as Sister Carrie with a smirk of satisfaction; one leaves it infinitely touched. --H. L. Mencken

About the Author:

Andrew Delbanco is the author of The Death of Satan: How Americans Have Lost the Sense of Evil, Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now, and The Real American Dream: A Meditation on Hope, all of which were New York Times Notable Books. The Puritan Ordeal won the Lionel Trilling Award from Columbia University. He has edited Writing New England, The Portable Abraham Lincoln, volume two of The Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson (with Teresa Toulouse), and, with Alan Heimert, The Puritans in America. His essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review, Raritan, and other journals. In 2001 Delbanco was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2003 was named New York State Scholar of the Year by the New York Council for the Humanities. He is a trustee of the National Humanities Center and the Library of America and has served as vice president of PEN American Center. Since 1995 he has been the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Modern Library Inc
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0375753214
• ISBN 13: 9780375753213
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752