re new novel (An American Tragedy) – NY Times 5-18-1924
Books and Authors
New York Times Book Review
May 18, 1924
pg. 20
“From Boni & Liveright comes the interesting announcement that Theodore Dreiser has written a new novel”
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Category Archives: An American Tragedy
Grace Brown’s and Roberta Alden’s letters
letters of Grace Brown and Roberta Alden
Please see downloadable Word file posted above.
Roberta Alden and Clyde Griffiths were the two main characters in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.
An American Tragedy was based on an actual case: the murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in 1906.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
June 2022
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Note: I transcribed Grace Brown’s letters from court records. They were presented as exhibits at the trial of Chester Gillette.
I would appreciate being informed of any errors I may have made in transcribing the letters.
Ayn Rand on Dreiser (some thoughts)
In her essay “Her Better Judgment: Ayn Rand, Theodore Dreiser, and the Shape of the American Novel, Part 1”
Marilyn Moore writes:
We know that Rand was familiar with An American Tragedy. In her 1962 essay collection The Romantic Manifesto Rand singled out the novel as an example of a “bad novel” because the plot does not support the theme. The big ideas Dreiser aimed for couldn’t be supported by the story he told.
I am not an Ayn Rand fan. Have not read her books, don’t think I would want to.
But, I think Ms. Moore’s comment (and the views of Rand underlying it) are perceptive and well worth considering.
I may try myself at some point to write more about this. Keeping in mind that An American Tragedy is a work of fiction which, despite its defects, deeply impressed me as reader and which I still admire.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2022
Robert Benchley. “Compiling an American Tragedy: Suggestions as to How Theodore Dreiser Might Write His Next Human Document and Save Five Years’ Work”
Robert Benchley, ‘Compiling An American Tragedy’ – Life 7-1-1926 (2)
Posted here as a PDF document:
Robert Benchley
Compiling an American Tragedy: Suggestions as to How Theodore Dreiser Might Write His Next Human Document and Save Five Years’ Work
Life
July 1, 1926
— posted by Roger W. Smith
May 2022
Robert Penn Warren, “An American Tragedy”
Robert Penn Warren, ‘An American Tragedy’ – Yale Review
Posted here:
Robert Penn Warren
“An American Tragedy”
Yale Review 52 (October 1962), pp. 1–15
— posted by Roger W. Smith
John Cowper Powys review of “An American Tragedy”
John Cowper Powys review of An American Tragedy – The Dial, April 1926
Posted here (downloadable PDF above) is a review by John Cowper Powys of Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.
The Dial, April 1926
An editorial comment: Dreiser’s friend Powys certainly enjoyed showing off his vocabulary.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
March 2022
Gilbert Seldes on An American Tragedy and Dreiser
Posted here (downloadable PDF above) are excerpts from Gilbert Seldes, Mainland (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936).
Gilbert Seldes (1893-1970) was an American writer and cultural critic. Seldes served as the editor and drama critic of the magazine The Dial.
Seldes’s review in The Nation of Ulysses by James Joyce helped the book become known in the United States. His tenure as editor of The Dial included the publication of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in the November 1922 issue.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
March 2022
from Donald Friede, “The Mechanical Angel”
Donald Friede, ‘The Mechanical Angel’
Posted here are excerpts about Dreiser from:
Donald Friede, The Mechanical Angel (New York Alfred A. Knopf, 1948)
Friede recalls his various experiences as Dreiser’s publisher, the stage production of An American Tragedy, and the trial in Boston in 1929 to suppress An American Tragedy.
Mentioned in the book are T. R. Smith (pg. 22) and George Antheil (pp. 54-55). Smith was editor-in-chief at Boni & Liveright. He was heavily involved in the editing and cutting of An American Tragedy. Antheil was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, and author.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
November 2021
“Horace Liveright: Publisher of the Twenties” (the chapters on Dreiser)
Horace Livreright, ‘Theodore Dreiser’
Horace Liveright, ‘An American Tragedy’
I have posted here excepts from the following book:
Horace Liveright: Publisher of the Twenties
By Walker Gilmer
New York: David Lewis, 1979
namely, the following chapters in their entirety:
“Theodore Dreiser,” pp. 39-59
“An American Tragedy,” pp. 134-152
plus footnotes
— Roger W. Smith
November 2021
Horace Liveright
re stage adaptations of An American Tragedy
‘Gossip Around Paris’ – Holywood Reporter 7-6-1935
‘Paris Producers Do American Plays’ – Holywood Reporter 7-13-1935
‘Dreiser Opus for Paris!’ – Variety 9-14-1935
Dreiser_NYT-Four-cases-of-Clyde-Griffiths
In the entry “Adaptions, Stage,” by Keith Newlin, in A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia,* there is discussion of Patrick Kearney’s stage adaptation of An American Tragedy , which had a successful run in New York in 1931; of an adaption of the novel performed in Vienna in 1931; and of Erwin Piscator and Lina Goldschmidt’s adaptation, ‘Case of Clyde Griffiths,” which was performed in Pennsylvania and New York City, beginning in 1935.
There is no mention of a French stage adaptation of An American Tragedy, adapted by Georges Jamin and Jean Servais, which Dreiser mentioned in an article in The New York Times, in 1936.** Dreiser also mentions a Russian adaptation by H. Basilevsky, which was entitled “The Law of Lycurgus”.***
Posted here are PDF files of Dreiser’s Times article and US theater industry publications in which the 1935 French adaptation was mentioned. The French adaptation by Jamin and Servais seems clearly to have been based on Patrick Kearney’s adaptation.
*A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia, edited by Keith Newlin (Westport, Connecticut; Greenwood Press, 2003). pp. 3-6
**”Four Cases of Clyde Griffiths,” by Theodore Dreiser, The New York Times, March 8, 1936
*** Закон Ликурга : американская трагедия : пьеса в 4 действиях и 12 картинах : по мотивам “Американской трагедии” Теодора Драйзера (Zakon Likurga : amerikanskai︠a︡ tragedii︠a︡ : pʹesa v 4 deĭstvii︠a︡kh i 12 kartinakh: po motivam “Amerikanskoĭ tragedii” Teodora Draĭzera; The Law of Lycurgus; An American Tragedy: A Play in 4 Acts and 12 Scenes: Based on Theodore Dreiser’s American Tragedy
–– posted by Roger W. Smith
September 2021
Roger W. Smith's Theodore Dreiser site 