Sister Carrie (New York Public Library Collector's Edition Ser.)
by Dreiser, Theodore
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
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Abingdon, Illinois, United States
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About This Item
New York, NY, U.S.A.: Doubleday Publishing, 1997. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. First Edition. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. Stated as the New York Public Library Collector's Edition. Complete original text. This novel about the effects of America's repressive moral climate was controversial in its day, and its availability to the public was delayed 12 years because of the "immorality" in Dreiser's sordid, realistic portrayal of the downfall of an innocent young woman who leaves her country town for the big city. Theodore Dreiser had a hardscrabble youth and the years of newspaper work behind him when he began his first novel, Sister Carrie, the story of a beautiful Midwestern girl who makes it big in New York City. Published by Doubleday in 1900, it gained a reputation as a shocker, for Dreiser had dared to give the public a heroine whose "cosmopolitan standard of virtue" brings her from Wisconsin, with four dollars in her purse, to a suite at the Waldorf and glittering fame as an actress. Dreiser tells a tale not "sufficiently delicate" for many of its first readers and critics, but which is now universally recognized as one of the greatest and most influential American novels. 585 pages..
Synopsis
Journalist-turned-author Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie, which some consider to be the “greatest of all American urban novels,” is the quintessential country-mouse-in-the-city story, only more… risqué. The novel tells the story of Caroline “Sister Carrie” Meeber, a young girl from rural Wisconsin who moves to Chicago with hopes of becoming a star. Carrie first stays with her older sister and her husband, but she soon becomes involved with a married man and a series of other morally questionable decisions follow. While Carrie may sound obviously blinded by her dreams of a glamorous future — and some may argue that’s because she is — Dreiser chose to present her character and others with a focus on human instinct as opposed to judgment, making it an early work of the naturalist movement. As one might expect, Dreiser had a difficult time finding and securing a publisher for Sister Carrie. After the manuscript had already been rejected twice, Doubleday, Page’s Frank Norris, author of the naturalistic novel McTeague, offered Dreiser a contract for the publication. This resulted in some upset within the publishing house — primarily due to book’s “lack of morality” — and Doubleday, Page tried to back out of the deal. Dreiser demanded that the contract be fulfilled and Doubleday published 1,008 copies in November 1900. However, the novel was perhaps not as thoroughly publicized as it could have been. Just 465 copies actually sold (not including the 129 that were sent out for reviews). The remaining 423 copies were later turned over to a remainder house. Unsurprisingly, Sister Carrie received negative response shortly after publication. Beyond the novel’s general sexual content and overall pessimistic tone, critics of the time took issue with the idea of Carrie engaging in illicit sexual relationships without suffering any consequences. Also unsurprisingly, Sister Carrie is another example of a masterpiece that could only be appreciated with time. In his 1930 Nobel Prize lecture, Sinclair Lewis compared the impact of Dreiser’s Sister Carrie to the work of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. Carrie, a film adaptation directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones, premiered in 1952. Sister Carrie is ranked 33rd on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Get Your Books Here
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 4268
- Title
- Sister Carrie (New York Public Library Collector's Edition Ser.)
- Author
- Dreiser, Theodore
- Book Condition
- Used
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- New York, NY, U.S.A.: Doubleday Publishing, 1997
- Keywords
- AMERICAN FICTION FICTIONAL WORKS AUTHOR NEW YORK N Y CHICAGO ILL YOUNG WOMEN PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERARY COLLECTABLE HARDCOVER LITERATURE
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- Literature;
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Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Leaves
- Very generally, "leaves" refers to the pages of a book, as in the common phrase, "loose-leaf pages." A leaf is a single sheet...
- 12mo
- A duodecimo is a book approximately 7 by 4.5 inches in size, or similar in size to a contemporary mass market paperback. Also...
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