Sister Carrie: The Pennsylvania Edition

by Theodore Dreiser, James L. W. West, III (Editor), Thomas P. Riggio (Introduction)

Overview

The Sister Carrie edition that was published in 1900, long regarded as a watershed work in American fiction, was actually a censored misrepresentation of Drieser's original story. When, 80 years later, the Pennsylvania Edition first appeared, replete with scholarly apparatus, it was hailed from coast to coast as a literary event of major importance. The Pennsylvania Edition restored the 36,000 words that had been excised at the insistence of the author's wife, his publisher, and a friend.

This edition contains the complete, unexpurgated text, without the scholarly apparatus, plus a new introductory essay by Thomas P. Riggio.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812291575
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	01/20/2015
Series:	The University of Pennsylvania Dreiser Edition
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	544
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Thomas P. Riggio is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania 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, available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Editorial Reviews

We do not recommend the book to the fastidious reader, or the one who clings to old-fashioned ideas. It is a book one can very well do without reading. -- Books of the Century; New York Times review, May 1907

New York Times Book Review

"No work of such historical repute . . . has ever been republished with such major change. . . . The 'new' novel . . . will probably become the accepted standard."

New York Times Herbert Mitgang

"In restoring Dreiser's masterpiece, the editors of the Pennsylvania Edition have given us more than a literary curiosity; like art historians cleaning a da Vinci fresco, they have uncovered the original glowing with an ancient newness."

The Nation Richard Lingeman

"The 'restored' Sister Carrie . . . is in many ways a different book, fuller, less cruel, more recognizably Dreiser's own work."

New York Review of Books Alfred Kazin

"In restoring Dreiser's masterpiece, the editors of the Pennsylvania Edition have given us more than a literary curiosity; like art historians cleaning a da Vinci fresco, they have uncovered the original glowing with an ancient newness."—Richard Lingeman, The Nation

"No work of such historical repute…has ever been republished with such major changes. . . . The 'new' novel . . . will probably become the accepted standard."—Herbert Mitgang, New York Times

"The 'restored' Sister Carrie . . . is in many ways a different book, fuller, less cruel, more recognizably Dreiser's own work."—Alfred Kazin, New York Review of Books

From the Publisher