Theodore “Theo” Dreiser (1871-1945)

Writer, Author, Journalist. He was the ninth child of German immigrants. While he was a child, he experienced poverty and at the age of fifteen, he was forced to leave home in search of work. After attending Indiana University, he found work as a reporter on the Chicago Globe. Later, he worked for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, the St. Louis Republic and Pittsburgh Dispatch, before moving to New York where he attempted to establish himself as a writer. Frank Norris, helped Dreiser's first novel, "Sister Carrie" (1900) to be published. However, the owners disapproved of the novel's subject matter (the moral corruption of the heroine, Carrie Meeber) and it was not promoted and therefore sold badly. His second novel, "Jennie Gerhardt" was not published until 1911. With the support of the literary critic, Floyd Dell, "Sister Carrie" was republished in 1912. This was followed by two novels "The Financier" (1912) and "The Titan" (1914) about Frank Cowperwood, a power-hungry business tycoon. "The Genius" was published in 1915 but it was another ten years before Dreiser greatest novel "An American Tragedy" (1925) appeared. The book was based on the Chester Gillette and Grace M. Brown murder case that had taken place in 1906. He wrote several non-fiction books on political issues like "Dreiser Looks at Russia" (1928), "Tragic America" (1931) and "America is Worth Saving" (1941). Theodore Dreiser joined the American Communist Party just before he died.

Bio by: Jelena

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Oh, Space!
Change!
Toward Which We Run So Gladly,
Or From Which We Retreat in Terror -
Yet That Promises To Bear Us In Itself Forever.
Oh, What Is This That Knows
The Road I Came?