Author: Theodore Dresiser

I was made aware of this title from a Facebook group I belong to. It was listed as a classic but I’d neither heard of it nor had I heard of the author. Both Dad and I read a lot of classics but maybe this one was too new for him to consider – it was published in 1900.

The story has three main characters – Carrie, Drouet. and Hurstwood. For the times it was considered quite racy as Carrie is persuaded to live with Drouet without marrying him (although with a promise of marriage) because he could afford to give her a better life than she was used to living. Hurstwood too took advantage of Carrie without telling her he was already married. Carrie leaves both men behind and survives by her own merits.

The book isn’t small – almost 500 pages to the story and then almost 200 pages of notes. Reading the notes was interesting as the novel went through many revisions before it was accepted for publication by a few publishers over a number of years. This Pennsylvania Edition is as close as we will ever get to the original work of Dreiser.

Goodreads Rating: * * *