Jennie Gerhardt (1911) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Controversial for its honest depiction of work, desire, and urban life, Jennie Gerhardt has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique over a century after its publication. Originally titled The Transgressor, the novel was shelved by Dreiser following a nervous breakdown in 1903. Controversial upon publication, Jennie Gerhardt has been largely overshadowed by Dreiser’s other works, but undoubtedly deserves renewed attention from readers and critics alike. In Columbus, Ohio, Jennie Gerhardt struggles to make ends meet while working at a popular hotel. There, she encounters a United States Senator, who takes a liking to her and offers his help with finances. Wary at first, Jennie acquiesces, and soon grows to care for the older man. She becomes pregnant and Senator Brander promises to marry her, but an outbreak of typhoid claims him as one of its victims. Left to raise a daughter on her own, Jennie moves to Cleveland to look for work. Employed as a lady’s maid, she soon meets the son of a wealthy industrialist who seems to have her best interests in mind. In order to stay with him, however, she hides her daughter by leaving her with her mother, and joins Lester on a trip to New York. Jennie Gerhardt is a story of tragedy and hope, of one woman determined to get more out of life than was promised to her at birth. This edition of Theodore Dreiser’s Jennie Gerhardt is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Circa l’autore
Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in Indiana, Dreiser was the son of John Paul Dreiser, a German immigrant, and Sarah Maria Schanab, a Mennonite from Ohio who converted to Catholicism and was banished by her community. Raised in a family of thirteen children, of which he was the twelfth, Dreiser attended Indiana University for a year before taking a job as a journalist for the Chicago Globe. While working for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dreiser wrote articles on Nathaniel Hawthorne and William Dean Howells, as well as interviewed such figures as Andrew Carnegie and Thomas Edison. In 1900, he published his debut novel Sister Carrie, a naturalist portrait of a young midwestern woman who travels to Chicago to become an actress. Despite poor reviews, he continued writing fiction, but failed to find real success until An American Tragedy (1925), a novel based on the 1906 murder of Grace Brown. Considered a masterpiece of American fiction, the novel grew his reputation immensely, leading to his nomination for the 1930 Nobel Prize in Literature, which ultimately went to fellow American Sinclair Lewis. Committed to socialism and atheism throughout his life, Dreiser was a member of the Communist Party of the United States of America and a lifelong champion of the working class.
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