Jennie Gerhardt: A Novel

by Theodore Dreiser

Overview

Focusing on Jennie Gerhardt, a poor young girl in Columbus, Ohio, Theodore Dreiser's novel depicts her inadvertently defying a host of conventions-of class, gender, family, and religion. Over a quarter of a century she is repeatedly victimized by circumstance, temperament, and most particularly the fact of her sex. Yet the triumph of the book lies in her incorrigibly loving nature. Cast out by society as well as by her family, she none the less fosters a far deeper understanding of relationships than anyone else. It is no surprise that she was her author's favourite heroine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788832546002
Publisher:	Publisher s11838
Publication date:	03/20/2019
Sold by:	StreetLib SRL
Format:	eBook
File size:	509 KB

About the Author

James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State University. He is the author of many books, including American Authors and the Literary Marketplace since 1900, an expansion of his 1983 Rosenbach Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania, and The Making of This Side of Paradise, both available from the University of Pennsylvania Press. His most recent books are William Styron, a Life (1998) and The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King (2005).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Text

JENNIE GERHARDT

Explanatory Notes

Editorial Reviews

Dreiser's second novel as published by Harper and Brothers in 1911 was substantially cut and edited to modify its subject matter and moral stance, changing it from a blunt work of social realism to a love story merely set against a social background. Editor West has restored the guts to the work in this unexpurgated version. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Jennie remains a true heroine who is willing to love, knowing she will become a social outcast. Hers is, Dreiser shows, a fully considered decision, albeit driven by need and distorted by the Victorian double standard, made in awareness of its consequences.”

New York Times

The best American novel I have ever read, with the lonesome but Himalayan exception of Huckleberry Finn.”

journalist and social critic H. L. Mencken