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An American Tragedy

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SKU:
743
Condition:
Very Good
Format:
Paperback, 830 pages
Publisher:
The New American Library, 1964
Edition:
A Signet Classic, First Printing
On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success. On a deeper, more profound level, however, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde’s tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream. Extraoridinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as the supreme achievement of a writer who ranks, in the words of Irving Howe, “among the American giants, one of the very few American giants we have had.” As Mr. Howe goes on to declare: “Reading An American Tragedy again…I have found myself greatly moved and shaken by its repeated onslaughts of narrative, its profound immersion in human suffering, its dreading up of those shapeless desires which lie, as if in fever, just below the plane of consciousness….It is a masterpiece, nothing less.” With an Afterword by Irving Howe

On one level, An American Tragedy is the story of the corruption and destruction of one man, Clyde Griffiths, who forfeits his life in desperate pursuit of success.  On a deeper, more profound level, however, the novel represents a massive portrayal of the society whose values both shape Clyde’s tawdry ambitions and seal his fate: it is an unsurpassed depiction of the harsh realities of American life and of the dark side of the American Dream.  Extraoridinary in scope and power, vivid in its sense of wholesale human waste, unceasing in its rich compassion, An American Tragedy stands as the supreme achievement of a writer who ranks, in the words of Irving Howe, “among the American giants, one of the very few American giants we have had.”  As Mr. Howe goes on to declare:  “Reading An American Tragedy again…I have found myself greatly moved and shaken by its repeated onslaughts of narrative, its profound immersion in human suffering, its dreading up of those shapeless desires which lie, as if in fever, just below the plane of consciousness….It is a masterpiece, nothing less.”

With an Afterword by Irving Howe

Editorial Review(s)

"An American Tragedy is not to be recommended as fireside reading for the tired business man: yet, as a portrayal of one of the darker phases of the American character, it demands attention." --Books of the Century; New York Times review January 1926, Robert L. Dufus

About the Author

Theodore Dreiser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, on August 27, 1871. After a poor and difficult childhood, Dreiser broke into newspaper work in Chicago in 1892. A successful career as a magazine writer in New York during the late 1890s was followed by his first novel, Sister Carrie (1900). When this work made little impact, Dreiser published no fiction until Jennie Gerhardt in 1911. There then followed a decade and a half of major work in a number of literary forms, which was capped in 1925 by An American Tragedy, a novel that brought him universal acclaim. Dreiser was increasingly preoccupied by philosophical and political issues during the last two decades of his life. He died in Los Angeles on December 28, 1945.