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Sister Carrie: the Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: the Pennsylvania Edition Unknown - 1981

by Theodore Dreiser


About this book

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.

From the publisher

Hidden under layers of error and corruption, the original version of Sister Carrie has finally emerged. The American classic that has been read in English courses for many decades is not the text as Dreiser wrote it. Even before it was submitted to Doubleday, Page and Company, the manuscript of Sister Carrie had been cut and censored. Dreiser's wife Sara-�-nicknamed Jug--and his friend Arthur Henry persuaded the author to make many changes. Both Jug and Henry felt that the novel was too bleak, the sexuality too explicit, the philosophy too intense.

In a description of Carrie, for instance, Dreiser had written, Her dresses draped her becomingly, for she wore excellent corsets and laced herself with care. . . . She had always been of cleanly instincts and now that opportunity afforded, she kept her body sweet. Apparently this passage was too intimate for Jug, for she revised it to: Her dresses draped her becomingly. . . . She had always been of cleanly instincts. Her teeth were white, her nails rosy. Jug and Henry urged Dreiser to make his bleak ending more equivocal. He changed it, but Jug, still dissatisfied, rewrote his second ending. Her version was published with the first edition and has appeared with every edition since printed. Doubleday, Page and Company further insisted that all real names--of theaters, bars, streets, actors, etc.--be changed to fictitious ones.

The editors of this new edition have gone back to the original handwritten manuscript as well as to the typescript that went to the publisher and have restored the text of Sister Carrie to its original purity. Errors of typists and printers have been corrected; cut and censored passages have been reinstated. Not only have original names been restored, but the Pennsylvania edition includes maps, illustrations, and historical notes that further identify these people and places. The edition also includes a selected textual apparatus for the scholar. The characters are significantly altered in this new text: Carrie has more emotional depth, conscience, and sexuality; Hurstwood shows more passion; Drouet is a bit less likable; Ames is a bit more vulnerable. With the inclusion of the original ending, Dreiser's vision becomes- more bleak and deterministic: In its expanded and purified form, Sister Carrie is more tragic and infinitely richer; in effect it is a new work of art by one of the major American novelists of this century.

First Edition Identification

Doubleday, Page first published Sister Carrie in 1900. Bound in red cloth, first editions have the same date listed on the title page as the copyright page.

Details

  • Title Sister Carrie: the Pennsylvania Edition
  • Author Theodore Dreiser
  • Binding unknown
  • Edition First Edition
  • Pages 672
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Univ of Pennsylvania Pr, Philadelphia
  • Date 1981
  • ISBN 9780812277845

About the author

John C. Berkey was Professor of English at Rutgers University, Camden. Alice M. Winters was a journalist, editor, and re-searcher. James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State University. Neda M. Westlake was Curator of the Rare Books Collection at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Sister Carrie : The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie : The Pennsylvania Edition

by Dreiser, Theodore

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Sister Carrie : The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie : The Pennsylvania Edition

by Dreiser, Theodore

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ISBN 13
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ISBN 10
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Dreiser, Theodore

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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Dreiser, Theodore

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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Dreiser, Theodore

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Sister Carrie

Sister Carrie

by Theodore Dreiser

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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Theodore Dreiser; Editor-John C. Berkey; Editor-Alice M. Winters; Editor-James L. W. West; Editor-Neda M. Westlake

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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition
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Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Theodore Dreiser; John C. Berkey [Editor]; Alice M. Winters [Editor]; James L. W. West [Editor]; Neda M. Westlake [Editor];

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american diaries 1902-1926
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american diaries 1902-1926

by Dreiser, Theodore & thomas riggio

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