The Last Titan. A Life of Theodore Dreiser

bered, that seemed to comfort supporters on both sides of the debate. Per-

haps like Pasquale Cutrone, the Italian immigrant in An American Tragedy

who is the first man to precede Clyde on death row, Dreiser now knew

“what’s on the other side.”39

Just before the co‹n was closed, Helen, whose marriage to the deceased

had been kept a secret until now, put in “To a Poet,” her sonnet which spoke

hopefully of having touched “the margin of your soul.” It was inscribed on

her gravestone ten years later when she was buried beside Dreiser. (Helen

died of a stroke at age sixty, having spent the last three years of her life par-

alyzed from an earlier stroke.)40 Charlie Chaplin, whom Dreiser had known

since the twenties and had come to know more closely in the forties, read

from Dreiser’s poem “The Road I Came” and served as a pallbearer. In his

autobiography, the famous comedian, who spoke in silence for the little

man, described Dreiser as “a kindly soul” with “a burning indignation.” The

newspapers remembered him in their obituaries as the “great writer who

didn’t know how to write.” “Between 1900 and the time of his death,” the

New York Herald Tribune observed, “he turned out more than a score of

well-known novels and other books and, after each was published, critics

agreed, in general, that the work was poorly written—but, still a good book,

and, sometimes, a great book.” The New York Times was more upbeat about

f a c i n g w e s t

4 0 0

the novelist who wrote “ungainly” prose. It quoted Mencken’s earlier as-

sessment as he “gazed from his Baltimore study across the country’s liter-

ary wasteland” that Dreiser “stands isolated today, a figure weather-beaten

and lonely, yet I can think of no other American novelist who seems so se-

cure or so likely to endure.”41 Mencken, of course, had been a mixed bless-

ing in Dreiser’s literary life and—ultimately—in the making of his repu-

tation today.

f a c i n g w e s t

4 0 1

s e l e c t e d w o r k s o f t h e o d o r e d r e i s e r

n o v e l s

Sister Carrie. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1900.

Jennie Gerhardt. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911.

The Financier. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912; revised edition, New York:

Boni & Liveright, 1927.

The Titan. New York: John Lane Company, 1914.

The “Genius.” New York: John Lane Company, 1915; reissued, New York: Boni

& Liveright, 1923.

An American Tragedy. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.

The Bulwark. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1946.

The Stoic. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1947.

s h o r t s t o r i e s a n d s k e t c h e s

Free and Other Stories. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1918.

Twelve Men. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1919.

The Color of a Great City. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923.

Chains. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927.

A Gallery of Women. New York: Horace Liveright, 1929; 2 volumes.

4 0 3

p o e m s

Moods: Cadenced and Declaimed. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926 (limited

edition of 550 signed copies).

Moods: Cadenced and Declaimed. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1928.

Moods: Philosophic and Emotional, Cadenced and Declaimed. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 1935.

p l a y s

Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural. New York: John Lane Company,

1916.

The Hand of the Potter. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1919; revised edition,

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1927.

t r a v e l b o o k s

A Traveler at Forty. New York: The Century Company, 1913.

A Hoosier Holiday. New York: John Lane Company, 1916.

Dreiser Looks at Russia. New York: Horace Liveright, 1928.

a u t o b i o g r a p h i e s

A Book About Myself. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1922; reissued as Newspaper

Days, New York: Horace Liveright, 1931.

Dawn. New York: Horace Liveright, 1931.

An Amateur Laborer, ed. Richard W. Dowell. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

p o l i t i c a l a n d p h i l o s o p h i c a l w r i t i n g s

Hey Rub-A-Dub-Dub: A Book of the Mystery and Wonder and Terror of Life.

New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920.

Tragic America. New York: Horace Liveright, 1931.

America Is Worth Saving. New York: Modern Age Books, 1941.

Notes on Life, ed. Marguerite Tjader and John J. McAleer. University: Univer-

sity of Alabama Press, 1974.

s e l e c t e d w o r k s o f t h e o d o r e d r e i s e r

4 0 4

c o l l e c t e d w o r k s

Theodore Dreiser: A Selection of Uncollected Prose, ed. Donald Pizer. Detroit:

Wayne State University Press, 1977.

Selected Magazine Articles of Theodore Dreiser: Life and Art in the American

1890s, ed. Yoshinobu Hakutani. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson

University Press, 1985, 1987, 2 volumes.

Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie, Jennie Gerhardt, Twelve Men, ed. Richard

Lehan. New York: Library of America, 1987.

Theodore Dreiser: Journalism; Newspaper Writings, 1892–1895, ed. T. D. Nost-

wich. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.

Theodore Dreiser’s Ev’ry Month, ed. Nancy Warner Barrineau. Athens: Univer-

sity of Georgia Press, 1996.

Collected Plays of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Keith Newlin and Frederic E. Rusch.

Albany, N.Y.: Whitston Publishing Company, 2000.

Art, Music, and Literature, 1897–1902: Theodore Dreiser, ed. Yoshinobu Haku-

tani. Urbana: University of Illlinois Press, 2001.

Theodore Dreiser’s Uncollected Magazine Articles, 1897–1902, ed. Yoshinobu

Hakutani. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003.

l e t t e r s a n d d i a r i e s

Letters of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Robert H. Elias. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 1959, 3 volumes.

Theodore Dreiser: American Diaries 1902–1926, ed. Thomas P. Riggio. Phila-

delphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

Dreiser-Mencken Letters: The Correspondence of Theodore Dreiser and

H. L. Mencken, ed. Thomas P. Riggio. Philadelphia: University of Penn-

sylvania Press, 1986, 2 volumes.

Dreiser’s Russian Diary, ed. Thomas P. Riggio and James L. W. West III.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

s e l e c t e d w o r k s o f t h e o d o r e d r e i s e r

4 0 5

a b b r e v i a t i o n s

AD

Theodore Dreiser: American Diaries 1902–1926, ed. Thomas P. Riggio.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

AL

An Amateur Laborer, ed. Richard W. Dowell. Philadelphia: Univer-

sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1983.

AT

An American Tragedy. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.

CGC

The Color of a Great City. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1923.

Cornell

Carl A. Kroch Library, Cornell University.

CP

Collected Plays of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Keith Newlin and Frederic

E. Rusch. Albany, N.Y.: Whitston Publishing Company, 2000.

D

Dawn: An Autobiography of Early Youth, ed. T. D. Nostwich. Santa

Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1998; originally published 1931.

DML

Dreiser-Mencken Letters: The Correspondence of Theodore Dreiser

and H. L. Mencken, ed. Thomas P. Riggio. Philadelphia: University

of Pennsylvania Press, 1986, 2 volumes.

DN

Dreiser Newsletter.

DRD

Dreiser’s Russian Diary, ed. Thomas P. Riggio and James L. W. West III.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

DS

Dreiser Studies.

FF

Dorothy Dudley, Forgotten Frontiers: Dreiser and the Land of the

Free. New York: Harrison Smith, 1932. Reprinted as Dreiser and the

4 0 7

Land of the Free. New York: Beechhurst, 1946. Citations are to the

1932 edition.

Free

Free and Other Stories. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1918.

GW

A Gallery of Women, New York: Horace Liveright, 1929, 2 volumes.

Hey

Hey Rub-A-Dub-Dub. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1920.

HH

A Hoosier Holiday. New York: John Lane Company, 1916.

Indiana

Dreiser Papers, Lilly Library, Indiana University.

JG

Jennie Gerhardt: The Pennsylvania Edition, ed. James L. W. West III.

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992; originally

published 1911.

L

Letters of Theodore Dreiser, ed. Robert H. Elias. Philadelphia:

University of Pennsylvania Press, 1959, 3 volumes.

ML

Helen [Richardson] Dreiser, My Life with Dreiser. Cleveland and

New York: World Publishing Co., 1951.

ND

Newspaper Days, ed. T. D. Nostwich. Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 1991; unabridged edition of the work originally

published as A Book About Myself, 1922, and reissued as Newspaper

Days, 1931.

Penn

Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, University of Pennsylvania.

SC

Sister Carrie, ed. Donald Pizer. New York: W. W. Norton, 1991;

originally published, 1900.

SCP

Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition, ed. John C. Berkey and

Alice M. Winters. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1981.

SMA

Selected Magazine Articles of Theodore Dreiser: Life and Art in the