An American Tragedy

An American Tragedy (1925) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser. Written and rewritten over a number of years, An American Tragedy is a weighty epic with a cleareyed vision of the decay at the heart of industrialized society. Based on the murder of Grace Brown in 1906, the novel proved controversial for its depiction of depravity and violence, but has endured as a classic of naturalist fiction and remains a powerful example of social critique nearly a century after its publication. A young Midwesterner bucks against his puritan upbringing, drinking with acquaintances and frequenting prostitutes when he isn’t busy working any number of thankless jobs. As friends and lovers come and go, he fails to find footing in a society fueled by ambition and cunning. Forced to flee Kansas City after a deadly auto accident, Clyde moves to Chicago before settling in Lycurgus, New York, where he meets a young farmgirl named Roberta Allen. When she becomes pregnant, Clyde begins to feel his dreams of freedom fade, and longs for a way out of marriage. Desperate and confused, he turns to a beautiful socialite named Sondra Finchley, the daughter of a local factory owner. Clyde knows what he should do—marry Roberta, settle down, raise a family—but his reckless ways refuse to remain in the past. This edition of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy is a classic of American literature reimagined for modern readers.

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