DREISER, THEODORE (1871— ), American author, was born at Terre Haute, Ind., on Aug. 27, 1871. He attended the public schools at Warsaw, Ind., and for a brief period Indiana university. He then went into newspaper work in Chicago, St. Louis and Pittsburgh. He began writing for various periodicals, engaged in editorial work, and became in 1907 editor-in-chief of the Butterick publications in New York city. This post he held until 1910. His first novel, Sister Carrie, published in 5900, was suppressed, but not before it had aroused the admiration, for its unsparing and poignant realism, of Frank Norris, the noted Ameri can realist, and later in England of Arnold Bennett, H. G. Wells and Hugh Walpole. Dreiser's second novel, Jennie Gerhardt, did not, however, follow until 1911. It had been written as a relief from editorial work, and its publication found Dreiser now de voting himself entirely to literature. In 1912 he brought out The Financier, the first of two books based upon the career of the traction magnate, Charles T. Yerkes. The second, The Titan, fol lowed in 1914. In the year between Dreiser published A Traveller at Forty, an autobiographical volume, the fruit of a first trip abroad. The Genius, in 1915, was a long and detailed study of the ruthless type of artistic temperament. This was followed by Dreiser's first venture into intimate drama, Plays of the Natural and Supernatural, and the same year, 1916, brought forth A Hoosier Holiday, based upon a revisiting of his native State. Sub sequent volumes included The Hand of the Potter, a tragedy (1918) ; Twelve Men (1919) ; Hey, Rub-a-Dub-Dub (1920) ; A Book about Myself (1922) ; The Color of a Great City (1923) and A Gallery of Women (1929). The publication in 1925 of An American Tragedy, based upon an actual American crime, brought Dreiser his first widespread popular recognition. The novel was dramatized by Patrick Kearney, presented by the Theatre Guild, and proved the sensational play of the season.
Theodore Dreiser was in 1929 probably the most important realist writing fiction in the United States, and this, in spite of the fact that he has been called "the most suppressed and insuppress ible writer in America," and the more important fact that he can hardly be said to have achieved a style, his writing being often heavy-handed and clumsy. His large attempts, his close attention to detail, the cumulative effect he gains by laborious presentation of the exact truth are qualities that would not in themselves account for the stature he has attained as a novelist. A greater quality than these is to be found in the deep human sympathy underlying his treatment even of the most sordid and sombre human affairs. It goes hand in hand with a sincerity that has never swerved. The manner of Dreiser's writing has been the sub ject of much criticism from an artistic point of view; but there is general agreement as to the value of his super-reportorial presen tation of some of the most significant aspects of modern American civilization. He builds solidly the story, for the most part, of tragic lives, tracing their inevitable course every step of the way and refraining from any comment save that implicit in the lives themselves. He has achieved a remarkable detachment in his writing.
A brother of Theodore Dreiser was the late Paul Dresser, the popular song-writer. A collection of his best songs has recently appeared with an introduction written by Dreiser. Further bio graphical and bibliographical material upon this novelist may be found in Burton Rascoe's Theodore Dreiser (1925), in Bessie Graham's The Bookman's Manual (1924) and in H. L. Mencken's A Book of Prefaces (1917) . (\V. R. BE.)