The last titan : a life of Theodore Dreiser / Jerome Loving.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Loving, Jerome, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945.

Dreiser, Theodore.

Novelists, American--20th century--Biography.

Novelists, American.

Journalists--United States--Biography.

Journalists.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (530 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When Theodore Dreiser first published Sister Carrie in 1900 it was suppressed for its seamy plot, colloquial language, and immorality-for, as one reviewer put it, its depiction of "the godless side of American life." It was a side of life experienced firsthand by Dreiser, whose own circumstances often paralleled those of his characters in the turbulent, turn-of-the-century era of immigrants, black lynchings, ruthless industrialists, violent labor movements, and the New Woman. This masterful critical biography, the first on Dreiser in more than half a century, is the only study to fully weave Dreiser's literary achievement into the context of his life. Jerome Loving gives us a Dreiser for a new generation in a brilliant evocation of a writer who boldly swept away Victorian timidity to open the twentieth century in American literature. Dreiser was a controversial figure in his time, not only because of his literary efforts, which included publication of the brutal and heartbreaking An American Tragedy in 1925, but also because of his personal life, which featured numerous sexual liaisons, included membership in the communist party, merited a 180-page FBI file, and ended in Hollywood. The Last Titan paints a full portrait of the mature Dreiser between the two world wars-through the roaring twenties, the stock market crash, and the Depression-and describes his contact with important figures from Emma Goldman and H.L. Mencken to two presidents Roosevelt. Tracing Dreiser's literary roots in Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman, Loving has written what will surely become the standard biography of one of America's best novelists.

Contents:

Hoosier hard times

A very bard of a city

This matter of reporting

Survival of the fittest

Editorial days

The writer

Sister Carrie

Down hill and up

Return of the novelist

Life after the Titanic

The genius himself

Back to the future

An American tragedy

Celebrity

Tragic America

Facing West

Selected works of Theodore Dreiser.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9780520929111

052092911X

9781597349413

1597349410

OCLC:

475933867