Editing Theodore Dreiser (section)

===Literary career===
[[File:House of the Four Pillars from the northeast.jpg|thumb|left|House of Four Pillars]]
During 1899, Dreiser and his first wife Sara stayed with Arthur Henry and his wife Maude Wood Henry at the House of Four Pillars, an 1830s [[Greek Revival architecture|Greek Revival]] house in [[Maumee, Ohio]].<ref name="Pillars">{{cite web|title= Lucas County : 2-48 House of Four Pillars|url= http://www.remarkableohio.org/index.php?/category/930|website= Remarkable Ohio|access-date= 27 June 2016}}</ref> There Dreiser began work on his first novel, ''[[Sister Carrie]]'', published in 1900.<ref name="Toledo">{{cite web|title= House of Four Pillars|url= http://toledoregionaltour.org/house-of-four-pillars|website= The Toledo Regional Tour|access-date =27 June 2016|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160701233322/http://toledoregionaltour.org/house-of-four-pillars|archive-date= July 1, 2016|url-status= dead|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Unknown to Maude, Arthur sold a half-interest in the house to Dreiser to finance a move to New York without her.<ref name="Maude">{{cite book|chapter= Henry, Maude Wood (1873–1957) |last= Newlin |first= Keith |year= 2003|title= A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia|pages= 186–188 |publisher= Greenwood Publishing Group |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Qqsc3zwrDtIC&pg=PA187 |isbn= 0-313-31680-5}}</ref>

In ''Sister Carrie'', Dreiser portrayed a changing society, writing about a young woman who flees rural life for the city (Chicago), fails to find work that pays a living wage, falls prey to several men, and ultimately achieves fame as an actress. The novel sold poorly and was considered controversial because it featured a country girl who pursues her dreams of fame and fortune through relationships with men.<ref name="Manchester" /> The book has acquired a considerable reputation. It has been called by [[Donald L. Miller]] the "greatest of all American urban novels."<ref name="Miller">{{cite book|author-link1 = Donald L. Miller |last1= Miller|first1= Donald|title= City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America|date= 2003 | publisher= Simon & Schuster|location= New York|isbn= 9780684831381|page=263|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=N0TNXWkIf0wC&pg=PA263 | quote = There is so much of the new metropolitan world in Sister Carrie, the greatest of all American urban novels.}}</ref>

[[File:Theodore Dreiser 2.jpg|thumb|right|Dreiser {{circa}} 1910s]]
In 1901 Dreiser's short story "Nigger Jeff" was published in ''[[Ainslee's Magazine]]''. It was based on a [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]] he witnessed in 1893.<ref name="Rice">{{cite book|last1= Rice|first1= Anne P.|title= Witnessing Lynching: American Writers Respond|date=2003|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0813533308|pages=151–170|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=xfSdgkSjsHUC&pg=PA151}}</ref> Dreiser's short story "[[Old Rogaum and His Theresa]]" was originally published in 1901.<ref>{{Citation
 | last = Cain | first = William E. | author-link =  | date = 2004 | title = American Literature | volume = 2 | publication-place = New York, USA | publisher = Penguin Academics | isbn = 978-0-321-11624-6 | oclc = 52728794 | url-access = registration | url = https://archive.org/details/americanliteratu00cain }}</ref>

His second novel ''[[Jennie Gerhardt]]'' was published in 1911.<ref name="Loving">{{cite book|last1= Loving|first1= Jerome|title= The Last Titan: A Life of Theodore Dreiser|date=2005|publisher=University of California Press|location= Berkeley|isbn= 9780520234819 |url= https://archive.org/details/lasttitanlifeoft0000lovi|url-access=registration|page=[https://archive.org/details/lasttitanlifeoft0000lovi/page/398 398]}}</ref>{{rp|44}} Dreiser's portrayals of young women as protagonists dramatized the social changes of urbanization, as young people moved from rural villages to cities.

Dreiser's first commercial success was ''[[An American Tragedy]]'', published in 1925. From 1892, when Dreiser began work as a newspaperman, he had begun

<blockquote>to observe a certain type of crime in the United States that proved very common. It seemed to spring from the fact that almost every young person was possessed of an ingrown ambition to be somebody financially and socially. Fortune hunting became a disease with the frequent result of a peculiarly American kind of crime, a form of "murder for money", when "the young ambitious lover of some poorer girl" found "a more attractive girl with money or position" but could not get rid of the first girl, usually because of pregnancy.<ref name="Srebnick">{{cite book|last1= Srebnick|first1= Amy Gilman|last2= Lévy|first2= René |title= Crime and Culture: An Historical Perspective|date= 2005|publisher= Ashgate|location= Burlington |isbn= 9780754623830 |page= 17|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m3jt6mKbUK4C}}</ref></blockquote>

Dreiser claimed to have collected such stories every year between 1895 and 1935. He based his novel on details and the setting of the 1906 murder of Grace Brown by [[Chester Gillette]] in upstate New York, a crime that attracted widespread attention from newspapers.<ref name="Fishkin">{{cite book |last1= Fishkin|first1= Shelley Fisher|author-link1= Shelley Fisher Fishkin|title= From fact to fiction : journalism & imaginative writing in America|date=1988|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|isbn= 9780195206388}}</ref> While the novel sold well, it also was criticized for its portrayal of a man without morals who commits a sordid murder.<ref name="Manchester" />

Though known primarily as a novelist, Dreiser also wrote short stories, publishing his first collection of 11, entitled, ''Free and Other Stories'' in 1918.

His story "My Brother Paul" was a biography of his older brother [[Paul Dresser]], who became a famous songwriter in the 1890s. This story formed the basis for the 1942 romantic movie ''[[My Gal Sal]]''.

Dreiser also wrote poetry. His poem "The Aspirant" (1929) continues his theme of poverty and ambition: a young man in a shabbily furnished room describes his own and the other tenants' dreams, and asks "why? why?" The poem appeared in ''The Poetry Quartos'', collected and printed by [[Paul Johnston (fine press printer and book designer)|Paul Johnston]], and published by Random House in 1929.

Other works include ''Trilogy of Desire'', based on the life of [[Charles Yerkes|Charles Tyson Yerkes]] (1837–1905), who became a Chicago streetcar tycoon. It is composed of ''[[The Financier]]'' (1912), [[The Titan (novel)|''The Titan'']] (1914), and ''[[The Stoic]]''. The last was published posthumously in 1947.

Dreiser often was forced to battle against censorship because his depiction of some aspects of life, such as sexual promiscuity, offended authorities and challenged popular standards of acceptable opinion.<ref name="Manchester">{{cite book |last= Manchester |first= William |author-link1= William Manchester |year= 1952|title= The Sage of Baltimore: The Life and Riotous Times of H.L. Mencken|pages= |publisher= Andrew Melrose, London, etc.}}</ref> In 1930 he was nominated for the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] by Swedish author [[Anders Österling]], but was passed over by the [[Nobel Committee]] in favor of [[Sinclair Lewis]].<ref name="Nobel">{{cite web|title=Nomination Database Theodore Dreiser|url= https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=2537 |website= Nobel Prize.org|access-date= 27 June 2016}}
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