The Last Titan. A Life of Theodore Dreiser

ern Library edition of the novel in 1932, he states that he finished the book in

May. The manuscript is dated as having been completed in March (see n. 18 be-

low); the revisions by Jug and Arthur Henry, which included a diªerent ending,

no doubt took the process a little longer, but not into May, for by May 2, it had

already been rejected by Harper’s.

6. DML, 1: 233; see also Vrest Orton, Dreiserana: A Book about His Books (1929;

repr. New York: Haskell House, 1973), 13.

7. Arthur Henry, An Island Cabin (New York: McClure, Phillips, & Co.,

1902), 213; and The House in the Woods (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1904). Henry’s

n o t e s t o p a g e s 1 3 3 – 1 4 5

4 2 5

statement about Burroughs appears in an undated and unpublished preface in-

tended for a reprinting of An Island Cabin in 1903 (Cornell).

8. Henry, Princess of Arcady, 10; and SC, 48. Maude Wood Henry told

Robert H. Elias in a letter dated May 13, 1945, that when Henry announced he

was leaving her, “Ann[a] was sitting cross-legged on the floor sewing” (Cornell).

9. See James L. W. West III, “John Paul Dreiser’s Copy of Sister Carrie, ” Li-

brary Chronicle 44 (Spring 1979): 85–93.

10. Dreiser had interviewed Field two years earlier; see “Life Stories of Suc-

cessful Men—No. 12 ,” Success 2 (December 1898): 78; reprinted in SMA, 130–38.

11. SC, 17, 49.

12. SC, 33–34.

13. SC, 72.

14. SC, 192–93.

15. SC, 84, 103.

16. SC, 276–321.

17. See SC, 327, 338–39; and SCP, 511–12, 538n. See also Ellen Moers, Two

Dreisers (New York: Viking Press, 1969), 67n., for a slightly diªerent view.

18. The manuscript of Sister Carrie is in the Manuscript Division of the New

York Public Library.

19. SCP, 538n.

20. James L. W. West III, A Sister Carrie Portfolio (Charlottesville: Univer-

sity Press of Virginia, 1985), 42–45; and Philip Williams, “The Chapter Titles

of Sister Carrie, ” American Literature 36 (November 1964): 359–65. For parallels

between Ames and Edison, see Lawrence E. Hussman, Jr., Dreiser and His Fic-

tion: A Twentieth-Century Quest (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,

1983), 30–32.

21. F. O. Matthiessen, Theodore Dreiser (New York: William Sloane Associ-

ates, 1951), 71.

22. SCP, 517; and SC, 369; see also Jerome M. Loving, “The Rocking Chair

Structure of Sister Carrie, ” DN 2 (Spring 1971): 7–11.

23. In a 1937 letter otherwise undated Dreiser told Louis Filler, “When I

finished the book, I realized it was too long, . . . and marked what I thought

should be cut out. Then I consulted with a friend, Arthur Henry, who suggested

other cuts, and wherever I agreed with him I cut the book” (Penn).

24. SCP, 518.

25. Orton, Dreiserana, 13–14; and L, 1: 210n. Dreiser’s railroad article was “The Railroad and the People,” Harper’s Monthly 100 (February 1900): 479–84.

26. L, 1: 210n.

27. SCP, 519–20; DML, 1: 231; and Orton, Dreiserana, 14.

28. SCP, 520–22; DML, 1: 231; and Richard Lingeman, Theodore Dreiser (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1986), 1: 281–82.

29. DML, 1: 231; and Frank Norris to TD, May 28, 1900 (Penn). Most of the

n o t e s t o p a g e s 1 4 5 – 1 5 4

4 2 6

correspondence concerning Sister Carrie and Doubleday, Page, & Company is published in L, 1: 50–65, as well as in SC. See FF, 169, for Norris’s location when he read Dreiser’s book.

30. TD, “Early Adventures , ” 2; see also TD to Fremont Older, November

27, 1923, ( L, 2: 417–21).

31. Jerome Loving, Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself (Berkeley: Univer-

sity of California Press, 1999), 451–53.

32. SC, 449; and L, 1: 55. See FF (170) for further suggestions, if not evidence, of Lanier’s negative view towards Sister Carrie. There is in the Dreiser collection

at Penn an unpublished typescript of an introduction to a later edition of the

novel that credits Lanier for standing up for the book. But this introduction is

also filled with factual errors and exaggerations.

33. Arthur Henry to TD, July 19, 1900 (Penn).

34. Frank Norris to Arthur Henry, July 18, [1900] (Penn).

35. Theodore Dreiser, “Biographical Sketch,” written for Household Magazine

(1929, Penn).

36. L, 1: 57.

37. Arthur Henry to TD, undated but received by Dreiser on July 31, 1900

(Penn); and L, 1: 59–60. The fact that Henry’s letter is written on Doubleday,

Page, & Company stationery suggests Henry’s closeness to Norris, whose man-

uscript of The Octopus he had read.

38. L, 1: 54.

39. L, 1: 63–64; Memorandum of Agreement, August 20, 1900 (Penn); and

SCP, 528–29.

40. Lingeman, Theodore Dreiser, 1: 294; and W. A. Swanberg, Dreiser (New

York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1965), 92.

41. TDCR, 6–7, 10. Concerning the Mirror review, William Marion Reedy

told Dreiser on December 26, 1900, that he read Sister Carrie in one sitting and

thought it was “damned good.” Horton’s puzzlement over Doubleday’s actions

was soon cleared up by Henry, whom he told on February 8, 1901: “I am not at

all surprised at your version of the Doubleday-Dreiser story. I had fancied some-

thing of the kind” (Penn).

42. L, 1: 52–53; and Neda M. Westlake, “The Sister Carrie Scrapbook,” Li-

brary Chronicle 44 (Spring 1979): 71–84.

43. “‘Sister Carrie’: Theodore Dreiser,” New York Herald, July 7, 1907 (quoted

from SCP, 584).

44. For TD’s 1930 comments on Frank Norris, see FF, 168–69. Norris’s auto-

graphed copy of Sister Carrie is in the University of California Library, Berke-

ley, Calif.; his response is published in the Collected Letters: Frank Norris (San

Francisco: The Book Club of California, 1986), 144. For the pros and cons on

whether Norris remained faithful to Sister Carrie, see Jack Salzman, “The Pub-

lication of Sister Carrie: Fact and Fiction,” Library Chronicle 33 (Spring 1967): n o t e s t o p a g e s 1 5 5 – 1 6 0

4 2 7

19–33; Robert Morace, “Dreiser’s Contract for Sister Carrie: More Fact and Fiction,” Journal of Modern Literature 9 (May 1982): 305–11; and Joseph R. Mc-

Elrath, Jr., “Norris’s Attitude Toward Sister Carrie, ” DS 18 (Fall 1987): 39–42.

45. TDCR, from which the review quotations that follow are taken.

46. George A. Brett to TD, September 21, 1901 (Penn). It is not altogether

clear whether Dreiser was involved in the revision. See John C. Berkey and Al-

ice M. Winters, “The Heinemann Edition of Sister Carrie, ” Library Chronicle

44 (Spring 1979): 43–52; and Sister Carrie: An Abridged Edition by Theodore

Dreiser and Arthur Henry, ed. Jack Salzman (New York: Johnson Reprint Cor-

poration, 1969), v–x.

47. Doubleday, Page, and Company to TD, May 6, 1901 (Penn).

48. “When the Old Century Was New,” Pearson’s Magazine 11 ( January 1901):

131–40; reprinted and slightly revised in Free.

e i g h t . d o w n h i l l a n d u p

1. TD to Richard Duªy, March 19, 1901 (Penn).

2. Arthur Henry, The House in the Woods, ed. Donald T. Oakes (Henson,

N.Y.: Black Dome Press, 2000), 171–72.

3. “Rona Murtha,” in GW, 2: 590; and Arthur Henry, An Island Cabin (New

York: McClure, Phillips, and Company, 1902; repr. A. S. Barnes, 1904, 1906),

160.

4. Henry, Island Cabin, 162–63, 169.

5. Henry, Island Cabin, 193.

6. Typescript of unpublished Preface to An Island Cabin (Cornell).

7. Henry, Island Cabin, 167; and Arthur Henry to TD, February 17, 1904

(Cornell).

8. Arthur Henry to TD, February 17, 1904 (Cornell).

9. Henry, House in the Woods, 173, 182, 187–88; Maude Wood Henry to

Robert H. Elias, April 2, 1945 (Cornell); and GW, 2: 613–24. Before Anna and

Henry split, they had moved to Yakima, Washington, where she invested what

money she had left from the sale of her typing agency in an apple orchard, be-

coming partners not only with Arthur (and Dreiser) but also Arthur’s brother

Alfred, a womanizing Methodist minister. Interestingly, Alfred wrote a sentimen-

tal novel about the Mormons that resembles his brother’s A Princess of Arcady—

it even features a parentless heroine brought up by a bachelor uncle and two male

associates. He also pursued Anna after Arthur had abandoned her, but she was

sorely distressed by his romantic advances. See Alfred Henry, By Order of the

Prophet (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1902).

10. “A Cripple Whose Energy Gives Inspiration,” Success 5 (February 1902):

72–73. The others were “A True Patriarch: A Study from Life,” McClure’s 18 (De-

n o t e s t o p a g e s 1 6 0 – 1 6 8

4 2 8

cember 1901): 136–44; “The Color of To-day,” Harper’s Weekly 45 (December

1901): 1272–73; “The New Knowledge of Weeds,” Ainslee’s 8 ( January 1902):

533–38; “A Remarkable Art,” Great Round World 19 (May 3, 1902): 430–34; “The