‘Rhymed Review, The Financier’ – Life 2-13-1913
Theodore Dreiser’s novel The Financier was published in 1912. (A later, revised and shortened edition was published in 1925.)
This rhymed review of The Financier, by Arthur Guiterman, appeared in the February 13, 1913 issue of Life.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
‘Gillette Sees His Parents’ – NY Times 3-1-1908
Posted here (above) as a downloadable PDF file is a New York Times article about a visit Chester Gillette’s parents made to the prison in Auburn, NY where he would be executed a month later. Gillette had just lost an appeal of his conviction.
“Gillette sees his parents,” New York Times, March 1, 1908
— posted by Roger W. Smith
review of ‘An American Tragedy’ – Sewanee Review 1926
review of An American Tragedy, The Sewanee Review 34.4 (October-December 1926), p. 495-497
Posted here (above) as a downloadable PDF file is a review of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy that was published in The Sewanee Review.
The review is notable for how the writer so clearly apprehends Dreiser’s intentions and the strengths of the book, while not neglecting the fact that many found Dreiser’s prose and his narrative style to be ungainly, or, as the writer puts it, “unbeautiful.”
— Roger W. Smith
September 2017
‘Gillette Faces Jury’ (father testifies) – Wash Post 11-20-1906
“Gillette Faces Jury,” The Washington Post, November 20, 1906
This article was very well reported and written. It conveys what the public must have thought of the Gillette case at the opening of the trial and the attitudes and emotions of those affected, from Grace Brown’s father to Chester Gillette himself.
— Roger W. Smith
September 2017
The answer is NO.
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Roger W. Smith, email to Thomas P. Riggio, November 4, 2016
Dreiser (who was not a good husband and never became a parent) was incapable of really, truly loving another person in his adulthood and never did. (See Harry Stack Sullivan’s oft quoted definition of absolute love.) A corollary was that he could never freely accept love or kindness nor trust anyone’s good intentions towards him.
As Sullivan wrote: “When the satisfaction or the security of another person becomes as significant to one as is one’s own satisfaction or security, then the state of love exists. … under no other circumstances is a state of love present, regardless of the popular usage of the word.” ( Harry Stack Sullivan, Conceptions of Modern Psychiatry: The First William Alanson White Memorial Lectures. New York; W. W. Norton & Company, 1966. pp. 42-43)
Dreiser NEVER attained this.
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Thomas P. Riggio, email to Roger W. Smith, November 4, 2016
The issue I thought we were discussing was Dreiser’s relationship with women. As to his ability to love another person, that’s another matter — one too complicated, for me at least, to make any judgments about.
It’s tough enough dealing with that topic in regard to people we know well in our own lives, never mind someone long dead whom we’ve never met. And then there are so many different criteria that people use to determine what it means to love. For instance, you mention only two, not being a husband and not having children, but that could be applied to Christ as well! Philandering husbands might still love their wives: Bill Clinton seems to “love” Hillary, for instance. As I said, it’s too complex for my simple mind to understand, so you may well be correct.
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The issue is not too complex! Biographers and psychobiographers make such judgments all the time.
Dreiser scholars don’t want to go to deeply into his psyche because of what they might find.
The Dreiser archives are massive. He saved practically every letter, telegram, and scrap of paper that ever came into his hands. His love affairs and romantic entanglements have been well documented.
There is much, also, in Dreiser’s own autobiographical writings that reveals how he habitually dealt with other people, his family, relatives, and his spouses. What is notable is that he was constantly worried that someone would be unfaithful to him — or, in the case of non-intimate acquaintances, such as people he had business dealings with — that someone would cheat him. He had many acquaintances, but hardly any in the category of what you would call a best friend. He just plain could not trust or give himself to anyone. In the case of intimate relationships with women, he demanded that they pledge and observe absolute fidelity to him, but would not pledge it to them. See my essay
“Theodore Dreiser, Ervin Nyiregyházi, Helen Richardson, and Marie Pergain”
on this site at
https://dreiseronlinecom.wordpress.com/?s=pergain
for just one example — a very telling one –of how this played out in real life.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
September 2017
David Lord, ‘Dreiser Today’ – Prairie Schooner 1941
Posted above as a downloadable PDF file is an important article on Dreiser that provides a comprehensive assessment of his critical reception in which his strengths and weaknesses as a writer are assessed from various standpoints and with reference to prominent critics with varying views:
David Lord, “Dreiser Today,” Prairie Schooner 15.4 (winter 1941): 230-239.
It is a well written and thoughtful assessment, in my opinion.
— Roger W. Smith
September 2017
Roger W. Smith's Theodore Dreiser site 