- Hardcover: 952 pages
- Publisher: University of Illinois Press; New Ed edition (15 Jun 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0252031008
- ISBN-13: 978-0252031007
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 16.5 x 5.6 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,885,308 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Review
"This is a superb edition: skillfully edited, fully annotated, usefully contextualized. We have been given a new and almost entirely unknown version of The Genius - the text as originally conceived by Dreiser. It now demands our attention and close study." James L. W. West III, general editor of the Cambridge Fitzgerald Edition "The Genius is one of the most overlooked and underrated of Dreiser's novels, yet it is arguably the key book for students of the writer. Claire Eby's presentation of this earlier and previously unpublished Genius is a triumph of textual and interpretive scholarship." Miles Orvell, author of The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940 "This edition provides an opportunity to follow in close compass Dreisier's process of revision. It captures his point of view at a transitional moment in his career, and it sheds light on his subsequent work, including his masterpiece, An American Tragedy (1925)...the interest of this edition lies in the attention it directs to a major albeit neglected novel. Eugene Witla's story is as much a measure of turn-of-the-century America as The Great Gatsby is an expression of the Jazz Age." William P. Kelly, Times Literary Supplement, May 30th 2008
Product Description
Dreiser's captivating portraits of turn-of-the-century America's famous figures
Before coming to national attention for his novel "Sister Carrie, " Theodore Dreiser worked for nearly a decade as a magazine editor and freelance writer. Now in paperback, "Art, Music, and Literature, 1897-1902" collects a rich selection of Dreiser's brief, colorful articles and interviews with American artists, musicians, and writers during this period. His profiles and interviews include such notables as Alfred Stieglitz, William Dean Howells, and legendary impresario Major James Burton Pond, as well as numerous women artists, novelists, and musicians. The volume is liberally seasoned with period illustrations reproduced from the original publications, and Yoshinobu Hakutani's notes provide biographical details about Dreiser's various subjects.
Before coming to national attention for his novel "Sister Carrie, " Theodore Dreiser worked for nearly a decade as a magazine editor and freelance writer. Now in paperback, "Art, Music, and Literature, 1897-1902" collects a rich selection of Dreiser's brief, colorful articles and interviews with American artists, musicians, and writers during this period. His profiles and interviews include such notables as Alfred Stieglitz, William Dean Howells, and legendary impresario Major James Burton Pond, as well as numerous women artists, novelists, and musicians. The volume is liberally seasoned with period illustrations reproduced from the original publications, and Yoshinobu Hakutani's notes provide biographical details about Dreiser's various subjects.
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First Sentence
THIS story has its beginnings in the town of Alexandria, Illinois, between 1884 and 1889, at the time when the place had a population of somewhere near ten thousand. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
THIS story has its beginnings in the town of Alexandria, Illinois, between 1884 and 1889, at the time when the place had a population of somewhere near ten thousand. Read the first page
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7 reviews
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Semi-autobiographical Dreiser Novel
1 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
I sought this novel to supplement the memoirs "Dawn" and "Newspaper Days" as a way to gain additional insight into Theodore Dreiser's intriguing personality. I was not disappointed. The book provides information about Dreiser's sexual appetite, motivations, and philosophy. It also is an engaging read in the way that "Sister Carrie" and "Jennie Gerhart" are. Sure, Dreiser can go on in detail in ways that an editor could have made more succinct, and his sentence structure could become byzantine or odd. But the plot is well structured and the sense of impending doom that crops up is mercifully relented so that the novel does not become as squirm-inducing as "An Amercian Tragedy." The reader's sympathy is evenly divided among the principles and the events are seen as fate intertwining with the forces and choices of the personalities. Dreiser even more than Sinclair Lewis is my favorite depictor of U.S. life early in the 20th century.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Good Navigation
3 Mar 2011
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is what it says it is: a public domain text with navigation that allows the user to easily navigate the entire book, providing forward, backward and cross links to every section of the book. Most public domain texts (and far too many new texts) are just plain texts rendered into the Kindle format. This text was carefully constructed to fit the structure of this book.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
His most autobiographical novel - and his own favorite
13 Aug 2006
Format:Paperback
This was Theodore Dreiser's favorite of his own novels - and his most autobiographical. Although Eugene Witla, the main character, is a painter, Dreiser modeled him so closely after himself that some critics have used incidents from the book as evidence for things in his own life. Much of the novel is an examination and criticism of the sexual mores of the time, which Dreiser felt restrictive and counter-productive.
In the initial section of the novel, after moving to Chicago to pursue a career as an artist, Witla meets Angela Blue; after enjoying much of what the city has to offer (including other woman), Angela and Witla marry.
The next part of the book is concerned mainly with Witla trying to make it as a struggling artist. Like Dreiser himself, Witla works for a while as a manual laborer and then as an illustrator in an advertising agency, where he shows some success.
But Witla can't control his restless sexual impulses and much of the last section of the novel concerns his affair with the very young Suzanne Dale, who is too immature and controlled by her mother to return Witla's affections. Angela also becomes pregnant at this time; after Suzanne is dragged off to Europe by her mother, thus ending anything that existed between her daughter and Witla, Angela delivers a baby girl but dies in the process. The book ends with an apparently wiser Witla caring for his daughter, also named Angela.
The last section is the least effective: what Witla could see in Suzanne Dale is hard to imagine. The early parts of the book are extremely well done, however. What distinguishes the book (and also got it banned) is Dreiser's unflinching portrayal of female sexual desire being as strong as the male's. In the midst of Witla's seduction of Angela, she is in a state of ecstasy even greater than Witla's: "She threw herself back in a transport of agony and delight. `Save me from myself,' she begs him, `I am no better than any other, but I have waited so long, so long!'" Like just about all of Dreiser's novels, it is too long and at times is a hodge-podge of ideas and sensations, but it's an honest book and reveals its purposes realistically, one adult to another.
In the initial section of the novel, after moving to Chicago to pursue a career as an artist, Witla meets Angela Blue; after enjoying much of what the city has to offer (including other woman), Angela and Witla marry.
The next part of the book is concerned mainly with Witla trying to make it as a struggling artist. Like Dreiser himself, Witla works for a while as a manual laborer and then as an illustrator in an advertising agency, where he shows some success.
But Witla can't control his restless sexual impulses and much of the last section of the novel concerns his affair with the very young Suzanne Dale, who is too immature and controlled by her mother to return Witla's affections. Angela also becomes pregnant at this time; after Suzanne is dragged off to Europe by her mother, thus ending anything that existed between her daughter and Witla, Angela delivers a baby girl but dies in the process. The book ends with an apparently wiser Witla caring for his daughter, also named Angela.
The last section is the least effective: what Witla could see in Suzanne Dale is hard to imagine. The early parts of the book are extremely well done, however. What distinguishes the book (and also got it banned) is Dreiser's unflinching portrayal of female sexual desire being as strong as the male's. In the midst of Witla's seduction of Angela, she is in a state of ecstasy even greater than Witla's: "She threw herself back in a transport of agony and delight. `Save me from myself,' she begs him, `I am no better than any other, but I have waited so long, so long!'" Like just about all of Dreiser's novels, it is too long and at times is a hodge-podge of ideas and sensations, but it's an honest book and reveals its purposes realistically, one adult to another.
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